


Gauntlet

by qwanderer



Series: Hear Me [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/F, F/M, I did a Ragnarok and now I guess I'm doing an Infinity War, M/M, Multi, Oops, Panic Attacks, Technobabble, also other aesir appear very briefly, brief appearance of Lokitty, in the form of a Nebelung large enough to ride, thaumobabble, there's only one Infinity Gauntlet in this particular universe, this was supposed to be canon compliant but I forgot about one of the AoU post-credit thingies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-14 20:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7188809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they're going to stop Thanos, they're going to need a team who can be more of a team than the Avengers ever managed to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Again, very little clue how this is going to resolve itself, but I have lots of plans for _plans._ That is, a lot of this is just going to be these guys prepping to face Thanos. I'm sure I'll think of something suitably dramatic to follow that.

When Loki had arrived back on Earth with three Avengers and the Soul Gem and plans to defeat Thanos, he'd had certain priorities for what to get done next. The first was to remove distractions from the minds of his chosen heroes. In the case of Tony and Thor, this meant making sure Earth would be protected if they went offworld. Freeing those who had fought with the Captain was therefore his first task. 

Healing Rhodes served a dual purpose - it meant Iron Man would be less distracted, and it introduced the possibility of adding War Machine to their strength. He knew Tony had already spent a great deal of time planning modifications to the grey armor that would make it a true prosthetic, compensating for Rhodey's new level of ability. His new brain-reading technology was a large part of that. 

At the same time, he'd assigned Thor to speak to the Hulk, to pool their knowledge about Thanos, his history, his current whereabouts, and his plans. 

The next priority would be to get the bearer of the Mind Gem better integrated into their number, and to update him on their plans. Loki had told Rhodey to suggest the idea to Tony that they all move into the Avengers compound, where Vision was. Then, he suggested a weekend off. 

The others on his team all had personal matters to attend to, if they were going to be purged of unnecessary distractions. Bruce and Thor, with their lady loves, and Tony, with Vision. 

But Tony could not be pushed directly, except by Rhodey, and Rhodey seemed to consider AI a no-fly zone, when it came to asserting his own opinion over Tony's. 

Indirectly it would have to be. 

* * *

For the sake of the world - hell, the galaxy - Tony knew that he needed to come to terms with Vision. 

They'd only seen each other in passing since Tony and the others had moved back to the compound two days ago, and it had been stilted. 

Tony knew that Vision wasn't JARVIS, he did, Vision's personality was different and his responses were less predictable, but he sounded like JARVIS, and he _remembered_ , and he _knew_ \- 

It was worse than when he'd sometimes forgotten, early on, that JARVIS wasn't actually Edwin Jarvis. That had kind of been the idea, back then. To forget, sometimes. To ignore reality. To have someone else watching out for him and taking care of all of that. 

Rhodey's fall had been a rude awakening, a stark illustration of the fact that Vis wasn't simply the third in a series, the next in a chain of people who watched out for Tony Stark, and who took on the second half of their predecessor's name. After Rhodey, Tony had refused to call him Vis, the way the others did, even though it had been his idea in the first place. 

Because Vision had priorities different from Tony's, separate from his well-being; Vision had things he cared about more than Tony Stark. 

Which was fine, except that Vision needed to be treated like a new person, he needed to get acquainted with people for his own sake, and every time Tony looked at him, heard him speak, he mourned two losses all over again. 

But Rhodey was okay, now, Rhodey was healthy, he was going to be fine, so now, at least, when Tony looked at Vision, he wasn't thinking _maybe three._

And now, Tony had more than just Rhodey and the man who'd shot him out of the sky - he had Thor, he had Bruce, he had Loki. 

Of course, Thor had stayed in California for a little longer to spend some time with his girlfriends over the weekend, and Bruce was off... figuring a few things out, now that he could see the world differently, so they weren't actually technically moved into the compound yet, but Tony _had them._ They'd be here if he needed them. 

And Loki helped the most, to be honest. 

Because Loki was looking out for him. Loki was keeping track. But it was never far from Tony's mind that Loki was fallible, that he could screw up just as badly as Tony ever had, much worse than Vision ever had. 

And Tony was learning to be okay with that. With the fact that there was no such thing as a perfect being in this universe. With the fact that everyone up here at the top, everyone with world-cracking power, was broken, in some way. And all they could do was the best they knew how. And trust between them was necessary, but could never be absolute. 

Trust was worth the risk. Loki was worth the risk. 

Still, hashing things out wasn't something Tony was anxious to do. So instead he and Loki were making out in his office, Tony in his office chair and Loki balanced in his lap, when Vision came in unannounced. 

"Oh! Pardon me," Tony heard. 

Loki, without lifting his head from where he was nuzzling Tony's neck, very pointedly put up his middle finger. 

Tony started to laugh, and then he couldn't stop, just delighted at Loki and the situation. 

Loki let out a long-suffering sigh and finally lifted his head, but Tony could tell from the twinkle in his eye that this had pretty much been his intended effect. 

"Don't worry about it, V," Tony said, beckoning Vision further into the room. "It's not like you don't have memories of worse." 

"That is... very true," Vision admitted. 

"So what's up?" Tony asked. Loki adjusted his position until he was sitting sideways across Tony's lap. 

"I've been looking into the status of the fugitive Avengers," Vision told him. "Warrants are still active in several countries, although because of the Black Ops nature of their imprisonment by US forces, and their celebrity status in this country, they would most likely be safe to return here, as long as a watch was kept for other such illicit arrests. The exception is Wanda - because she is not a United States citizen, and because of the specific nature of the prior offenses held against her, she would run a significant risk of legal extradition." Vision sighed briefly. "I am still working on it." 

"Good," Tony said shortly. "Someone should be. Can't think of anyone better." He cocked his head at Vision. "Of course, you could've just emailed. Probably would've been quicker on your end, actually." 

"I... have been concerned for you, Tony," Vision told him. "And I've developed a disconcerting need to see things with my own eyes, rather than by intercepting camera feeds." 

Tony squirmed a little in his chair, only Loki's weight on him keeping him from getting up and pacing, or fiddling with his phone. "It's not your job to be concerned about me, V," he said. "And anyway, I'm fine." 

"I can see that," Vision said, a hint of softness in his voice. "When I came in - when you laughed - in the records I have access to, your stress levels have not been that low since before Afghanistan." His voice went a little sad as he continued, "I am glad that JARVIS's absence has not impeded that." 

Tony sighed, and then, finally, he looked up, caught Vision's eye. "I miss him," Tony said. "No getting around that. J kept me alive, so many times, when I wouldn't have made it otherwise. But he was... he was too perfect for this world, I think. He was always supposed to go, eventually. He was always supposed to be you." 

"I'm not sure what you mean," Vision said. 

Tony took a breath, then paused. Thought. "For a while, I thought the suits were the cocoon," he said at last. "But the suits, they're what I take out there with me and fight. They're Iron Man. They're _me._ But JARVIS, he was a cocoon. He protected me. He was too good at his job. And I needed that. For a long time. I needed someone to keep watch, I needed a way to handle the fear. An insulator. It was too much. But now I need to learn to live with the fear." 

As if in illustration, Loki ran a thumb up his throat, and Tony shivered. 

"I... see," said Vision. "Or, at least, I think I'm beginning to." 

"Me too, V," Tony said with a quiet laugh. "Me too." 

There was a moment of companionable silence. 

"You know what you wish to, Vision," Loki said, speaking directly to him at last. "What do you know of me?" 

"I know that the four Avengers whose opinions I hold in highest esteem have all vouched for you," Vision said. "Tony and Thor both have reason to be less than objective when it comes to you, but they have not hesitated to fight you in the past. Colonel Rhodes... his endorsement was more surprising, which makes his argument all the more compelling. The evidence is there, in my records. Slight changes in eye color, analysis of your tactics during the Chitauri invasion... what I know because the Mind Gem knows it. That you were a pawn. That it was used against you. But beyond even all of that... the Hulk has the Soul Gem, and he is very protective of Tony. I have no doubt that if you intended harm to Tony, to any in this world except, perhaps, one Thaddeus Ross, then Hulk would never have allowed you to return here at all." 

Loki seemed calm, externally, as he took all this in, but to Tony, he seemed a bit frozen, overwhelmed. Tony held him closer as he took over the conversation again. 

"So we're putting together a little task force," Tony told Vision, "seeing as the guy who was pulling Loki's strings is coming back with another army. He wants the Infinity Stones, and we figure as long as we're protecting them from him, we might as well use 'em against him. At least, the ones we already have. So, you're up for it?" 

"Every part of me," Vision said, voice a little stilted, "would be glad to face Thanos. The part that you created, to protect Earth. I believe... the gem is anxious to fight beside its siblings again. They feel... they have been apart too long." 

"That will be a dangerous factor," Loki told him. "They wish to be wielded. They wish to be held in power. We must plan carefully if we are to avoid...." 

"Catastrophe," Vision offered. 

"There is no way to avoid that," Loki told him. "Not when it comes to Thanos. But perhaps we might avoid complete and utter devastation." 

They shared a solemn look. 

"Guys," Tony told them. "Come on. We've got to aim higher than that." 

"Of course," Loki said, turning back to him with a slightly wan smile. "Of course we will, my love. And you are a force to be reckoned with, something unique in the universe. Something the likes of which Thanos has never faced. But neither have you faced anything like him." 

"That's never stopped me before," Tony reminded him. 

"I know. You fight, and you survive. That gives me hope." 

"And you've survived this guy. We can do it again. We can do it better." 

The two had eyes only for each other. Vision looked on thoughtfully before turning to leave, and going back to his work. 


	2. Chapter 2

Later that day, they encountered Rhodey in the facility kitchen, evidently looking for some lunch. 

"So we were just in my office... doing stuff...." Tony told him with a smirk. 

"You know I don't wanna know what you two get up to," Rhodey said, shaking his head. 

A strangely vivid image of Loki cheerfully announcing "I'm stuff!" flashed through Tony's mind. Loki glared at him balefully. Tony hastily moved on. 

"...and we realized things are progressing fairly well in terms of Earth stuff so it's probably time to think about how to prep and what exactly to do about the other Infinity Stones." 

"And how do the other Infinity Stones factor into the plan, exactly?" Rhodey asked. 

Tony shrugged, made a face. "There wasn't really a plan, per se, except 'get the Soul Gem first because Thanos wants it most.'" 

Rhodey looked from one to the other of them. "So you went after the Soul Gem as what, bait? But now you have it, you're planning on using it." 

Loki inclined his head. "Hulk is a sound container for it. And we will need Hulk, in this." 

Rhodey frowned. "And the others, you wanna just leave 'em where they are, or are we going after them too?" 

"It's your call," Tony said to Loki. "You know the most about 'em. I know just about enough to make me really dangerous." _Like a baby playing with a nuke. The thing that made Ultron? So far beyond me._

"You will learn," Loki assured him. 

"So we're _not_ leaving well enough alone?" Rhodey asked. 

Loki sighed. "I've been considering this, and there's a great deal of risk either way, but whatever we do, we must use every weapon at our disposal against Thanos. If we can get them, we should use them. Choosing not to will not, ultimately, help us. The best thing to do to protect the Infinity Stones from Thanos is to use them against him. We know where they are. And together, with all the stones, we can defeat him." 

"I thought it was dangerous to bring them all together," Rhodey said. 

"Yes," Loki agreed. "Dangerous. Potent. Powerful. Volatile. As is any other weapon with any chance of defeating Thanos. The stones must be used in perfect concert, if they are brought together. It has been done before. In the vault on Asgard rests the Infinity Gauntlet, which has the ability to act as containment for all six at once." 

"One person can use all of them?" Rhodey asked. Tony just listened, knowing there was a hell of a catch. 

"One person, godlike in ways realms beyond the Aesir," Loki told them. "The full Gauntlet will break a being much faster than a single stone." 

Tony snorted. "So we can't use that. Obviously." 

"No," Loki agreed. 

"So what's 'perfect concert' mean for us?" Tony asked. 

"Six beings must come together to use them. They must be a perfect, smoothly operating team. Each of them serving as part of a whole. Easily, quickly. Following in coordination like parts of the same body." 

Tony frowned, considering this. "Huh. So, so far we've got Mr. 'we're not a team, we're a time bomb' and Mr. 'I blew my own teammate out of the sky because I got distracted.' Great start on that." 

"We will make it work," Loki said. "We must." 

"Okay," Tony allowed, optimistic and trusting as ever. "How?" 

"This kind of cooperation between the stone's bearers can't be safely maintained for long, but I believe there are ways to vastly increase the chances. This we know: to help the gems come together without the gems' presence interfering with each other's containment, each wielder's personality must be, by nature and habit, accustomed to limiting or restraining that element. This will help to prevent the gems from asserting their own will and sowing chaos." 

A hard, tired look had Tony's face in its grasp. He looked like he hated what he was about to say. "I don't think I can be part of this team we're building," he told them, pain in every word spoken. "I'm not exactly known for moderation. Of any kind." _See again: Ultron. See also: years of functioning alcoholism and assorted personal excesses. See also: Extremis-era Iron Legion._

"Not true," Rhodey said. "You're a master of miniaturization. You make big shit for big groups, for big purposes, but for your arsenal? The reactor, the wristwatch-repulsor you pulled out in Vienna, even the armor? I mean, I'm biased in favor of War Machine, you've gotta admit the big fucking gun on the shoulder gives it something. And the mech Stane put together was... probably what a lotta people would have done with that tech. But Iron Man? That's everything you need, nothing you don't, outside of the flashy paint job. Even made one that fits in a suitcase. Not even a _big_ suitcase. That was impressive, Tony. So yeah, I'd say when it comes to the power that you have at your fingertips, you're in the habit of moderating space." 

"The power of the Mind gem stopped at your constructed boundary," Loki said thoughtfully. "Regardless of my theories on the subject of why it did not push, that means something in its own right. And the armor, by its very nature, is a boundary in space. You draw those lines, and you enforce them." He nodded briskly. "The Tesseract contains the Space Gem. The easiest to access next. Still in Asgard, in the Vaults. I expect that you could find a way to harness its power for your suits, perhaps give it a smaller container than that cube. That should be our next task." 

"Huh," said Tony, looking from one of them to the other. "Huh," again. _You guys really wanna trust me with that? With one of these? Heimdall's an Asgardian and his twisted him into a pretzel as soon as it had the chance. And as much as I hate the idea, I have a lot in common with my dad and evidence is pretty clear the Tesseract fucked him up bad. Among other things, yeah, but... it was there._

"There is no one else I would trust with this," Loki told him. "And I know your mind better than most, you know I do." Loki huffed. "Only Bruce, the Hulk, and the Soul Gem might know better. Do we need call on them?" 

Tony vibrated with hesitation. _I love you,_ said Tony's eyes, his face, his posture. _But if I'm going to tangle with another one of these gems, this time I need to listen to what Bruce has to say. 'Cause last time, he tried to stop me, and he was right. Please understand._

"We do," Loki agreed softly. "I see." He took Tony by the shoulders and pulled him into his arms. "I've forgotten what it is like to have more than one or two others whom you trust well enough to share the weight of decision," he whispered. "But you have more. And I will not deny you their comfort." 

Tony squirmed a little in his arms, then all at once, mushed his face into Loki's chest. "I told you you weren't gonna be my everything," he muttered, muffled past mere human understanding, but clear as a bell to Loki. 

"I know, my love," Loki told him, rubbing his back. "It matters not." 

Just then, a lightly accented voice interrupted. "Boss, you have a text message from Dr. Banner. Shall I read it?" 

Tony unmushed himself, wrinkling his nose a little. "Sure thing, Fry. Lay it on me." 

"'Hulk says to stop worrying and do your science.'" 

"Well, is that clear enough?" Loki asked, cupping Tony's face. 

"Just about," said Tony, his face relaxing into a smile. "Yeah, okay. Let's do this." 

Loki kissed him, knowing that he could never kiss all the worry away, but at least he could make a start. 

Rhodey cleared his throat. 

They looked back at him, not displaying much in the way of guilt, but at least paying attention. 

"Are you guys just trying to make me lose my appetite now? Or was there something else you wanted?" 

"Hey," Tony said to Loki, "if we're going back to Asgard, we can get your healers on his spine issue, right?" 

"It would be best if we attract no further attention to the forming alliance between the rulers of Asgard and the heroes of Midgard," Loki told him. "And especially our interest in bringing together the Infinity Stones. For now, we should go in quietly, invisibly. Everything we need is in the Vaults. Hiding another mortal and involving the Healers... that would complicate matters." 

Tony scowled. Rhodes looked almost... relieved. 

"As much as pretty much every Airman would leap at the chance to experience space travel," Rhodey said thoughtfully, "I know I'm not ready to put on the suit again. I need to know what I can do. And I don't want to be a distraction from what you really need to do there. You guys go. I'll be here." Rhodey rolled himself the rest of the way to the fridge. "And if you're leaving soon," he said without looking up, "at least eat something before you go and get yourself buried under a great big mess of a collision between magic and science!" 

Loki watched him thoughtfully. Something about his offer of help... still disturbed the man on some level. 

Well, that was an issue for another day. 

Today, they would begin the process of taming the Tesseract. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There Are So MAny Bunnies Oh No

That evening, Thor and Bruce found themselves walking up the long Avengers facility driveway at the same time. 

Hulk had probably engineered this by nudging Bruce to leave when he did. It was odd, getting all these impulses from him that had little to nothing to do with anger. It was going to take some getting used to. 

It was still all centered around protection for Bruce and the people he cared about, around helping them all; there were still powerful and undeniable emotions behind it. But it was all a lot more... confident. Informed. 

"How was your weekend?" Bruce asked Thor. 

"Fruitful," the Asgardian answered. "Rosalind and I, we have taught each other everything we know of keeping Jane happy. Jane will be in good company until we may see each other again." 

"And that's fine with you?" Bruce asked. "You're not jealous?" 

From the quick frown on Thor's face, and the ripples he felt in his own mind, Bruce thought his eyes had probably just changed color - not green anymore, but orange, he supposed. 

"I _am_ jealous," Thor said at last. "I wish I could be there with the two of them, but alas, I am needed here. Things are as well as they might be." Thor turned his head to look at Bruce again. "Was your quest similarly fruitful?" 

"You know, it was," Bruce said, nodding. "Which surprised me. I always expected seeing Betty again would be... catastrophic. After this..." Bruce tapped the place on his throat where Hulk held the gem, "Hulk let me know that I was being a damn coward about it." 

Thor frowned sadly. "Has your lady love been awaiting you alone, or has she also found someone to care for her while you are at war?" 

"Betty and Len actually got married," Bruce told him with a small smile. "That was a lot of the reason I stayed away so long, even though I've always kept loving her and I was pretty sure she still had feelings for me. Not just because she'd chosen someone else. But because I was terrified of messing things up for her." 

Bruce didn't mean to be saying so much, but Thor seemed to be drinking it in. He supposed that he had been there for Thor's discovery that his brother was alive and perhaps not as hopelessly lost to him as originally thought. It had to be a mess to deal with, and maybe hearing about Bruce's own story would help. 

"If my mother had ever so much as looked at someone else..." Bruce bit his lip and looked up at the sky. "Well. That kind of thing was never pretty with him. I believed Betty that Len was a good man. But my mother always said my father was a good man, once. I didn't want to have any part in driving Len in that direction. 

"There's so much I've been afraid of because it reminds me of my father, even in little ways. 

"I was afraid for Roz, too, when she told you about her and Jane. Just a little. I did trust you. But things go wrong. They just do." 

"Faith cannot be absolute," Thor agreed solemnly. "I am learning. You, Tony, Loki... the universe you live in has always been more complex than the universe I have known. Your fear was just." 

"But you didn't even blink. You even seemed happy about it. That cracked my resolve, I guess, and then when the Hulk learned to use the Soul Gem, everything opened up. He suddenly didn't have to fear everyone, all the time. He could save his fear and rage for the real threats. And he told me that Len wasn't like... that. That if Len said he was okay with Betty loving both of us, then that really meant he was okay with it. And Hulk thought I should ask." 

"And did you?" Thor asked curiously. 

"Len brought it up, actually." Bruce laughed at the memory. "Betty's been pining for me, apparently." 

Thor smiled a little sadly. "Tell me of her, this Betty," he said. "Is she as clever and bright-eyed as Jane? Is her anger as sharp as her laughter is soft? Does she dream of uncovering the secrets of the universe?" 

Bruce... blinked up at him. 

"I am sorry, my friend," Thor said. "It seems I am still with Jane in my mind." 

"No, no, you're fine," Bruce said. "That's actually exactly what Betty is like. But Jane looks out at other planets and wants to figure them out, and Betty, she looks inside people, inside their cells, to figure the world out. Which makes sense, I guess, since who you are is out there with the planets, and who I am is deep in my cells." He thought in silence for a moment. "And Len heals people. And Roz heals worlds." 

"Aye," said Thor, slapping him on the back fondly. "Our beloveds have made good matches for themselves." 

"I've lived with the same way of thinking about the world for such a long time," Bruce said, "and now so much is changing so fast. It's hard to keep up." 

Thor nodded, sighing. "I feel the same, my friend," he said. "I feel the same." 

* * *

Tony brought a lot of equipment with him to Asgard in a very small suitcase. 

He packed it up, and then he looked at it, and then he discovered that this was a talent of his that he hadn't previously appreciated. Compact and neat and full of useful things. 

He'd tucked himself and his toys into small spaces a lot in his lifetime, he mused, starting with the kneehole of his father's desk. 

He'd needed to hide there, to learn what his father cared about, what he really wanted from him. 

He'd heard about the company, about efficiency and engineering, about business contacts, but he'd also heard about the arc reactor, about the Tesseract, about Steve. 

So much he hadn't understood at the time. But he'd been getting the background, a bite at a time, ever since, and now.... 

When he'd studied the Tesseract before, his priorities had been: 

1) To track and find it. 

2) To figure out what Loki meant to do with it and how to stop him. 

3) To figure out what SHIELD (or perhaps now Hydra would be more appropriate) had been doing with it all this time since they'd taken it from Howard Stark. 

What Howard had been doing with it before that was spared a very little thought, whatever brain power he had left portioned by how much he didn't actually care. 

Now, though. 

Now, what he had before him to study were three objects: 

The Space Stone, contained inside the Tesseract, contained inside the glass tube that the Aesir had made to restrain all of its powers except carefully controlled space travel. 

Heimdall's breastplate, the empty space where the Soul Gem had once been contained and the mechanism that had done that. 

The Infinity Gauntlet, the object the breastplate had been patterned after, with settings for each of the six stones on its golden surface. 

To add to this he had, buried in his mind, a knowledge of the Hulk's nature and how he had been created, a similar knowledge about Vision and the creation of that body, information about the use of the Tesseract on Earth over the years including how Hydra had used it, and an intimate knowledge of the different stages of arc reactor design. 

This time, when he looked at the Tesseract, when he scanned it, when he put together everything he'd ever learned that might apply to how the containment around the Infinity Gems functioned, he saw a lot of things that he'd never seen before, but he felt like he should have. 

Somewhere in his mind, some part of him had already known that the Arc Reactor was only possible because Howard had studied the Tesseract. After all, it had a white-blue glow of precisely the same color temperature, and Hydra had used the cube to make energy weapons. 

They'd used enormous batteries to hold the energy they'd leached off the Tesseract, ones that had a great deal in common with the arc reactor designs and how they contained the energy that it created. 

The palladium reactor created energy of the same type as the Tesseract, of the same type that those batteries had held. But now that Tony was studying more closely what the stones themselves actually were, what they had in common, how they operated, he could see that the post-palladium reactors were more than reactors. 

The molecule/atom thing that he'd created from his father's obsessively-encoded instructions, what had turned out to be more or less the vibranium equivalent of a spherical buckminsterfullerene (and damned if he was even going to let the shortened version of that word pass through his _mind_ right now) bore more resemblance to the gem _inside_ the Tesseract than the substance of the cube itself. 

The latest arc reactor designs, the ones meant to hold the new element, were already insanely close to what he would need to contain the gem itself. 

It was the cube that was the problem. 

"The cube's the part that's dangerously reactive," he mused aloud, to Loki. "It's almost like an active defense mechanism to stop the gem inside from being used for anything else." 

"When Reality housed itself in Jane Foster," Loki told him, "her body reacted much the same way." 

"Huh," Tony said. "How'd you get it out?" 

"Elven magic," Loki said. "A being with greater affinity towards it drew it from her body. Ms. Foster's equipment was used to separate him from it so that it could be contained." 

That added a new element. 

He had all the tools he needed, then, to get the gem out and re-contain it. And it could all be traced back to the gem itself. The arc reactor design, the element, from the gem to Howard Stark, some of it via Hydra. The equipment needed to bend space and pop the gem out of its containment, made by Dr. Foster with the help of Dr. Selvig, post-Tesseract-affair. 

This gem really fucking wanted out of that cube. Was it really going to let him put it right back in containment, nice and neat in the arc reactor of one of his suits? 

"I feel like it has a plan," Tony said, staring at the cube for a long moment. 

"It longs to be used," Loki told him. "It longs to be reunited with its siblings. If there were anything more sinister than that, or more dangerous, Soul would have known." 

"So you think I should do this?" Tony asked, turning to look Loki in the eye. 

"Yes," Loki told him, his voice holding just an edge of challenge. "If you think you can." 

"All right, that's it," Tony said, holding out a hand. "C'm'on, back to my workshop, I've got some building to do." 

* * *

As Tony work, he spoke aloud, as usual, to himself, to the 'bots, to the air, occasionally to Loki if he remembered he was there. 

"I think I've got the hang of this," Tony said. "I mean, let's see if this works, first, but, yeah. General principles are sound for all the stones. So. Are we going to get them all, or just these three? Or four, you said one was on Nornheim, right? They're allies?" 

"In a sense," Loki answered. "If we are meant to have Time, they will give it to us. If not, they will refuse, and I must respect that refusal." 

"What?" Tony asked, frowning. "Why?" 

"They balance the future of the galaxy on the blade's edge of time," Loki said. "If our possession of the Time Gem will lead to good, we will have it. If it would lead to ill, they will refuse." 

"You think we should try for the rest, though?" 

"I think the Stones are more likely to be cooperative as a team if we reunite them all. If it is true what Vision says, that they miss each other, then even if we cannot allow them their ambitions, we can still allow them that." 

"We'd need to find the right people for the rest of the Stones. Heroes." 

"Yes," Loki agreed. 

"Dunno who you have in mind, but... I don't think I can make peace with Rogers or the others just yet. I don't think I could be on a team with them again, not if we have to be that smooth." _Like one body with many minds. That requires trust. Like me and Jarvis, or Friday, piloting the armor together._

"No," said Loki, "we won't need them. I've been considering this. Thor has learned moderation well enough in his power, though I'd never have believed it possible. He lived without Mjolnir, he gave up the throne. Not once, but twice, now. He tempers his hand to the situation. I'd trust him with the Power gem. Allow him into my trust once more. If you agree... that only leaves reality, and time. Who else would you trust to operate as part of your body?" 

"Oh, Rhodey can handle time," Tony snorted. "He's always been a punctual fucker. And I mean always. Worst quality, he's a stickler for it. Best quality, unerring comedic timing." He thought a little more. "And you won't find a better pilot on this planet. Acceleration, precision maneuvers... he knows just when to come out of a dive." 

"I agree," said Loki. "And reality?" 

"I feel like this is a test," Tony said, turning to face him, reaching out for his hands. _You. Of course, you. Always you._

Loki raised his eyebrows. "You have someone in mind for a position which requires an unerring grasp of reality? Ms. Solomon, perhaps?" 

Tony huffed. "Listen, this isn't about just _knowing_ one of these elements, right? It's about being able to make that element your bitch. And you? You're a fantastic liar. An illusionist. You make pretzels out of reality. You are the line where reality ends and something else begins. So if we need to set limits on reality? Yeah. You're who I'm gonna go to." 

"Are you sure?" Loki asked, frowning. 

"As sure as you were with me." 

Loki twined their hands together, and they simply stood, wondering at the trust they'd found in each other, even after everything. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here have another "well I've got this nice chunk and I would totally just keep writing and make it longer but I have to go to work" short chapter

The destruction of the Tesseract and the recontainment of the Space Gem went... pretty smoothly, actually. 

There was a dicey moment when the dying cube sent out a spray of energy, but Tony dodged it neatly and got the little vividly-blue gem into the waiting arc reactor shell before it could get into any more trouble. 

Then he took the arc reactor out of the armor he was wearing and put in the new, deep-blue-glowing device. 

"You know, I like this color," he said, turning to Loki with a smirk. "Red's a long-standing favorite, but blue's definitely growing on me." 

Loki raised his eyebrows at him. "Why don't you wait and see how it treats you first?" he said. 

"Should we test this baby out?" he said, holding a gauntleted hand out to Loki, who took it in his own. Then Tony's eyes flashed the same deep blue as he reached for the stone's powers. "Woah," he said. "That's a rush. Ready to go back home?" 

Loki smiled. "Show me a new way between worlds," he agreed. 

And then they were gone. 

* * *

They reappeared in Tony's workshop without so much as a stumble. 

"I could get used to that," Tony said. "So do I have to keep this reactor on me at all times now? Is that how it works?" 

"As long as it is secure, you may leave it," Loki said. "Heimdall became accustomed to the Sight. It was part of him. As well, because his possession of the gem was a secret, it was better if his eyes did not change. You may leave it in the armor, and no one will see your eyes change as you use it." 

"Not like I can't find a way to move it to me without using it." Tony signaled the armor to disassemble, and it walked itself to its biometric-encoded lockup. "Doesn't look that different, does it?" he said, looking at the blue glow. "Anyone asks, I threw a filter over it. They'll believe that. Although the visible blue LED look isn't quite cutting edge anymore." 

He shrugged, rolled up his sleeves and started bringing up plans. "Hey, Fry, Rhodey around?" he asked. "Now that we've got this containment thing down to a science, and we know we want him with one, I wanna get the kinks worked out of the whole neural relay concept." He opened an armor design file. 

"Colonel Rhodes is in residence," FRIDAY answered, "as well as Vision, Thor and Dr. Banner. They're all very curious about how things are going." 

"All right, might as well bring 'em all down to gawk at the greatness that is the new home of the Space Gem." 

"Sure thing, Boss," she replied. 

Rhodey rolled his way in first, going right to Tony and examining the holograms. "That looks different," he said. "Why'd you move the reactor lower?" 

"More room in the upper chest for the brain scanners," Tony answered absently. 

"And why's it green?" 

"How do you feel about being the guardian of Time?" Tony asked with a smirk. 

"Oh," said Rhodey, eyes widening. "Wow. So... you really think I'm still a good choice to be right there in the thick of the fight." 

"'Course," Tony said. Then he paused, turning towards Rhodey, peering at him. "Unless you... wanna retire." 

"No! No," Rhodey reassured. "I really do wanna get back out there. It's just... weird, you know? I know how bad this was, this injury. I was prepared for the recovery time. I'm still not sure what my abilities are now. And I know a lot of people wouldn't wanna put their faith in me like that, not yet." 

"But you're ready?" Tony asked. 

"I'll _get_ ready," Rhodey answered, firm determination in his tone. 

"Cool beans," Tony said, turning back to the hologram. "You like the whole green-and-grey thing, or should Time Machine here get a repaint?" 

"Tony, I'm not changing my name _again_ ," he insisted with a laugh. "It's still War Machine." 

"Fine, fine," said Tony, then muttered something about _Space man's too generic anyway._

Thor and Bruce had entered during this conversation but had hung back, giving them room to speak. Vision entered last, with a frown on his face, gaze flitting between Banner and the newly enhanced suit with the blue light in its chest. 

"How dangerous is this?" he asked Loki. "Really? This stone being in the same room as two of its siblings? I can join your conversation remotely, if that would be safer." 

"I don't believe the Space Gem is much affected by proximity," said Loki, who had been studying it subtly with his magic since they'd decided to retrieve it. "It is more the containment than the distance, there. It is, in a sense, everywhere at once. Bruce..." Loki frowned a little. "If we are to do this, bring all the stones together, then it is best done as quickly as possible, and you will need to learn to work together. As will the rest of us, but neither of you can separate the Stones' containment from your persons. The proximity of those two stones is a risk we will need to take." 

"It is going to take some getting used to," Bruce admitted. "I didn't spend much time with Vision before...." _Sokovia. Betrayal. Flight._

Vision was having a hard time meeting Bruce's eyes. "I am sorry. I know you cared deeply for JARVIS. And I am not...." 

"I know you're not," said Bruce in a tone of voice that made him look up. Bruce tapped his throat. "I know you're not. But I know you're someone I would very much like to get to know." 

Tony, watching them, took a breath that rattled a little with emotion. "Okay, now that that's decided!" He audibly pushed away the nostalgic atmosphere. "We've gotta be a team, make plans, all that jazz. What should we call ourselves? We're kind of breaking off from the Earthvengers here. What are we, galactic avengers? Guardians of the galaxy?" 

"That one's taken, actually," Loki commented. 

Tony brightened. "Hey, really? Maybe we should team up." 

Bruce's eyes went orange for a long moment before he said, "No. No. You and Peter Quill should never meet." He seemed torn between laughter and horror. "Or Rocket. Nope." 

"It is better if those in this room, the guardians of the Stones, work as a unit in isolation," Loki told them. 

Thor's eyes widened at this. "You would put Power in my hand?" 

"Why assume that," Loki asked him, "and not Reality?" 

"I never had your gift for magic and illusion, Brother," Thor told him. "It was your plan, and Jane's, that put Reality in its place the last time. I only provided the force." 

Loki smiled a bit. "I would put Power in your hand," he acknowledged. "Because you have learned, finally, what not to do with it." 

"Thank you, Loki," he said. "I will try to bear it well." 

"So... why the isolation bit?" Tony asked. 

"We must operate as a single being in more than just harmonious teamwork," Loki told him. "We must be as one body, with one shape." 

"What... how... oh my gosh, are we the Planeteers now? Do I need to build a Megazord?" 

Loki ignored him. "We are each an aspect of a force, a force that would use the Infinity Stones in unison, akin to a being that would wear the Gauntlet. Vision - mind - eyes and brain, perception. Hulk, with the soul gem at his throat and his monstrous roar - he is the voice, the will. Tony - the heart, of course. The hope. Thor and I, the right and left hands." 

"Is that gonna work?" Rhodey asked, looking between the brothers. 

"Thor and I operated as the right and left hands of Asgard's throne for centuries," Loki said. "We know these roles. But I hope, now, that Thor will pay somewhat more attention to the left hand's importance." 

"I will," said Thor. "I swear it." 

Rhodey tapped the armrest of his wheelchair, and said thoughtfully, "Does anyone else find it kinda silly that I'm apparently operating as the legs of this crazy conglomeration?" 

"Nope," said Tony. 

"No indeed," Thor contributed. "It is quite fitting." 

"You are time," Loki said. "You are the waltz, you are the footwork. You are pace." 

Vision said, "The part of your brain that once governed your legs is learning to work in different ways, to interact with machines, interface with other intelligences. To become part of something bigger." 

Bruce just nodded. 

Rhodey shrugged. "Well okay. Maybe I am the man for the job." 

Tony slapped him on the back. "Always suspected you were a leg man." 

Rhodey glared. 

But his heart didn't really seem to be in it. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter calls back pretty directly to the sixth story in this series, The Arcane, The Divine, and the Utterly Screwed Up, so you may want to refresh your memory of that one.
> 
> Not sure what the update schedule will look like for the next while. I've recently had my priorities for the next three weeks drastically rearranged, and the coming chapters are gonna be doozies.

Tony fabricated the new War Machine suit overnight, and in the morning they put it through its paces. At the end of the long session, Rhodey wasn't satisfied with the precision of his movements on the ground yet, but they found that in flight, his control was just as good, if not better, with commands coming directly from his brain. 

"Ready to go to Nornheim?" Tony asked him. 

"Ready as I'll ever be," Rhodey answered. "We've still got two stones to get after this one. Maybe having Time will help me figure this out quicker." 

"Any procedures we should know about before we go?" Tony asked Loki. 

"No questions about the Norns themselves," Loki told them both. "If you ask questions, they may not answer, but personal questions are the most likely to be considered rude. Other than that, no. They will be expecting us and they will greet us in whatever way they feel is appropriate." 

"Shall we, then?" Tony said, offering an arm each to War Machine and Loki. 

They each grabbed ahold of him, and then they were gone. 

Nornheim's major population center looked a lot more like an old university campus than Tony had expected, the buildings large, middling grand, but persistently practical, and the atmosphere one of intense study and contemplation. Tony and Rhodey removed their helmets, but not their armor. Loki led them to the central building, not one of the largest but one of the tallest, with a spire that stuck up from the center. 

Three beings sat around what appeared to be a large bowl of cloudy water, equidistant, none of them looking up from their contemplation of the bowl to greet the visitors. One was human-looking, Aesir, probably, or Vanir. Another was large, blue, patterned. Jotun. The third, a bearded dwarf. 

"Good day," said Loki. "You know, I assume, that we're here for the Stone." 

The Jotun answered Loki, not in Allspeak, but in something which was probably Old Norse or related. Whatever it was, it made Loki's eyes widen, and he fell back a step. 

The dwarf beckoned to Tony next. Tony stepped up. "What's up, my man?" he said. 

"There's one thing you must know," the dwarf told Tony. "One thing you must remember. What you cannot do, the Liesmith can do. The burdens the Liesmith cannot bear, you can bear. You are each other's counterparts." 

"Yeah," said Tony. "I'll remember." 

Then the third Norn caught Rhodey's eye, jerked her chin for him to come closer. 

Once he stood near her, she said, "The soul forge is not for you. But you know that." 

He nodded. 

"Something in you knows that you will need a reminder to stay within your limits, to count your steps as precious. You can't fit all of time inside one mind. But you will try. And you will recover." She gestured to the bowl. "Reach in and take what you need." 

Rhodey held the empty arc container that Tony had given him in one armored hand, and with the other he reached into the bowl, catching hold of something small and slippery. As he lifted it, more and more of its green glow showed through the murky water. It broke the surface with an unnatural splash, and Rhodey hurried to put it into its place in the container. 

Once it was done, they all breathed a sigh of relief. 

As Rhodey replaced the arc reactor over his solar plexus with the green-glowing one, all three Norns vanished. 

It felt... weird, like a bubble against his skin that he would need to pop to find out what was inside. 

Well, James Rhodes had never shied away from a course of action he believed to be necessary, so he reached out with his mind, and breached that boundary. 

It burst, and out came a flood. 

Names, dates, voices, triumphs and tragedies, beginnings and possibilities, endings and inevitabilities, birth upon birth upon birth and death upon death upon death. 

He could barely feel his own body, even above the break, there was _so much else_ to feel. 

There was barely a Rhodey, he was getting swamped down under all of it until all there was was Time. The weight of it. The enormity. The more he tried to figure it out, get perspective, see the edges, the bigger all of it got. And he didn't know how to stop _looking._

"Oh, shit," he could hear his own voice, as if from very far away. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh _shit._ " That was replaced, very quickly, by ragged gasps. 

He barely noticed when Tony spoke some kind of override, froze the bottom half of the new War Machine in place and let the top unfold down and back. Then Tony's hand was on his shoulder, rubbing circles on his back, and Tony was speaking, calm and slow. 

"Hey, buddy," Tony said, steady as anything. "It'll be okay, right? You'll get the hang of this. Just breathe, yeah? Slow, come on. Come on, Rhodey. You can do this. Come on back to me." 

Rhodey grabbed ahold of that so-familiar voice, its warmth and calm. There was no calm where Rhodey was, but Tony's calm was right there, right within reach, and Rhodey borrowed that, tried to shut out Time, reform that delicate membrane between himself and more knowledge than he'd ever known to exist. All that mattered was now. All that mattered was Tony. 

His breathing slowed, evened out, deepened and calmed, but he waited another couple of minutes before he even attempted to speak. 

"What _was_ that?" he asked. "That wasn't just... not just my mind. It did something to my body. That wasn't right." 

Tony's mouth quirked a little in a very small, very sad smile. "Pretty sure that was your first panic attack," he told Rhodey. "So welcome to that horrible brotherhood." 

"Yeah, thanks," Rhodey said, voice barely strong enough now to convey the sarcasm. "Thanks for sharing _that_ kick in the gut." He looked at Tony, studying him anew. "That's really what that's like? Every time?" 

"Feeling like you're about to die? Yeah, pretty much," Tony answered. "And I've had the feeling enough times to tell you, yeah, it's pretty accurate to the real thing." 

Rhodey shook his head. "Jesus, Tony. If I'd known...." 

"You didn't," Tony said calmly. "Now you do." 

Rhodey took another breath, just taking that all in. Then he looked over at Loki. "Was it like this when Tony first got ahold of Space?" he asked. 

"Actually," Loki told him, "he seemed fairly unfazed, the first time he used Space." 

Rhodey frowned at his oldest friend. "Tony, how did you not freak out when you first used the Space Stone, there's... there's so much here, how do you even start to keep track of something like this?" 

Tony sniffed, looked over at him with a thoughtful moue. "Well, I don't think you can really compare experiences like this," he said. "All the Stones are different. Time is infinite in ways that... space just isn't." 

"Yeah, but it's infinite. I can't imagine opening up a box like that and then just... dealing with it and going about your day." 

"I've got a mess of infinite boxes up here." Tony tapped his head. "Some bigger than others. It was... yeah, it was a step up. It was a new kind of infinite. But not the biggest I've had to deal with." 

"Oh," said Rhodey. Remembered the fall of SHIELD. Remembered how much he'd underestimated the panic attacks, remembered what Tony had said about his experiences then, with the TV playing over and over the footage of three helicarriers falling out of the sky. 

"What?" Tony asked. "What have you got?" 

"I think for the first time, I really get how much it takes to be able to survive inside your head," he said. "I mean, I never really got it. I knew you tried hard. But I didn't get _this._ You even told me. You said you could keep track. You told me what it meant to be a god. And I didn't believe you. But now I think I'm _living_ it. And it's a _mess,_ man. My head is such a mess right now." 

"Yeah," Tony said, sounding tired, still rubbing Rhodey's back. "I know." 

Tony was... he was _more_ than Rhodey had ever suspected. And it made Rhodey trust him, even more than he had. 

Which was a really good thing, if they needed to know each other and act together for this thing to work. 

"If I know you," Tony told him, "you'll have it all tied up and regimented within the week." 

Rhodey laughed tiredly. "I hope so," he told his best friend. "You'll need me to. But for now, it's staying shut up in its little box." 

"Solid plan," Tony concurred. "Let me know if you're gonna try that again, 'kay?" 

Rhodey chuckled, and nodded ruefully. 

"Back to earth?" he asked then. 

"Yeah, that'd be good," Rhodey answered. 

They linked arms again, and the familiar walls of the workshop surrounded them again. 

"So hey," Tony asked Loki. "What was with them all being different species? I thought Norns were a species." 

"No," said Loki. "They are a world, and a people, but they are not a race. And people come and go from the circle. My mother was a Norn, for a time, before her marriage." 

"Huh," Tony said. "So how do you get to be a Norn?" 

"They say that if it is meant to be, then it is," Loki said, his eyes quite clearly showing that he knew what a frustrating answer that was. "There have been Norns of every species in the Realms, but there tend to only be three active at any given time. Three is the number they have found, through experience, allows them to carry the weight of knowledge over many years without pulling apart the interface with their strife. Generally, if there is a Norn of the same species as a petitioner, that Norn speaks to them, because they are closest to that fate." 

Tony's eyebrows crinkled together. "But we're both humans and different ones spoke to us," he said, gesturing to himself and Rhodey. 

"You have met the people of Nidavellir," Loki reminded Tony. "And you know some of the people of Asgard. Which would you say are most akin to you, and which to Rhodey?" 

"You got a point there," Tony admitted. 

Rhodey sighed as the impact of it all hit him. 

"You know what," he told them, "I actually think I'm gonna need a nap, after that." 

Tony waved him off. "Go, do what you need to do," he said. "I've got two more containers I need to make." 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I was thinking about all the shit Loki says in this series, like he Knows Stuff that actually he has no way of knowing, and I was like how does he know all this stuff? He doesn't. He makes it up. Loki makes shit up all the time. This is how magic works. Will becomes reality. Just another way in which Loki is a perfect guardian for the Reality Gem.
> 
> Seriously, my Loki muse is the only one of my many muses who is fully aware that he is a character in a story and that he can influence me in order to influence how the story goes. He's a master of his own reality in so many ways.

The rest of the crew gathered for an evening meal shortly thereafter, Bruce apparently having given Vision a cooking lesson, because the kitchen was full of fragrant smells and the two of them wore matching aprons as they brought everything to the table. Some kind of fowl - probably chicken, here - and a flavorful rice dish. 

Loki had left Tony to his engineering, as they did need those containers, and the man had clearly wanted time to himself to process as much as Rhodey had needed his nap. He would bring food to Tony later. 

As they ate, Thor kept shooting curious glances at Loki. 

Loki finally huffed, and turned to him. "What?" he asked flatly. 

Thor was silent for a moment longer, but then he spoke. "All your talk of how Jane's short life would bring me pain," he said. "And now Tony Stark? Half his mortal life is gone, Brother, and that is if he does not give his life in one of these battles that he savors as much as any Aesir. What would you say to me now, of that?" 

"I would say," Loki told him, "that now Ragnarok is well underway, we can worry about the lifespans of our loves only when and if we all survive what is to come." 

"And then, if we do?" 

Loki sighed again. "I said, that is a question for another day." 

"I must know what you intend." 

"I don't know, does that satisfy you?" Loki snapped. "I have fallen into the very pit which I warned you to avoid." 

"No, you stepped in it," Thor reminded him. "You sought him out. My lot was thrown in with Jane's the moment I set foot on this world after my banishment. But you, you had the throne, you had your magic, you could have gone anywhere you pleased, and you chose to come here. To have Tony Stark as your ally." 

"The freedom of all the realms," Loki said coldly, "and who else among them would love me, Brother? Love comes so easily to you. How many do you think have fallen for your charms while I stood by your side? How many looked at you and seen someone worth caring for?" 

"I never counted." 

"You had no need. Sif, Fandral, Amora, Lorelei, Brunnhilde, Jane, Darcy, Rosalind, Steven. You could have had your choice among them, any of them. You have two, now, and I doubt that truly tests the limits of your charm. And what am I, next to you? Who in all the Realms has ever loved me? Me, the liar, the monster, the runt who relies on trickery? Only one, Thor. There has only ever been one." 

Thor's eyes were full of sadness and shock, stricken, perhaps, but he showed no sign that he would back down. 

"Before Jane," he said quietly, "what was I? A spoiled crown prince who knew nothing of selflessness, nothing of devoting my life to another's happiness. Knowing her changed me, just as knowing Tony Stark has changed you. Knowing Jane Foster has taught me what it is to love, and now I find I may love others in turn. That will stay with me for all of my life, even as Jane cannot. Knowing Tony has taught you what it is to be loved. And I hope that you will find that again." 

A noise escaped Loki, unbidden, a tiny, broken whine. He turned away from Thor, looking to his food with businesslike focus. Not eating, just looking. 

"I am sorry," said Thor, laying a hand on Loki's shoulder. "You are right. Another time." 

Loki didn't move, not until Thor's hand had been withdrawn, and then he stood, took his plate to the kitchen, and made up another for Tony, all while thinking as little as possible. Invisibly, he ghosted into Tony's lab and left it by his elbow. 

There were things that needed to be done, and perhaps they were best done alone. 

He entered Tony's access code into the panel behind which the armor lay, and he released Space and its container from where they nested in its chest. 

* * *

If the Collector was surprised to see Odin himself in his little hideaway, he didn't show it. 

It took some convincing for him to give back the Aether, but Odin reminded him that it had always been on loan to his little collection, and growled a bit. 

If that hadn't worked, Loki might have had to delve further into the powers of the Space stone to allow it to help steal its sibling, but luckily, that proved unnecessary. He could already feel how the second of the two Infinity Stones he had held was wearing away at the edges of his sanity, just as Mind had. Just as the uncontained Aether had threatened to do. Just as Soul had done, when he'd been pulled into it. 

Loki knew himself well enough to know that he would not last as long against Time, or Power. He had too many regrets, too many bad memories, had spent too much time feeling powerless, overshadowed. 

But Space.... 

He kept the feel of Tony's mind at the front of his thoughts, that murmuring, organized, compact flow of necessity and sleekness, and that kept him whole. 

One Infinity Stone in each hand, he took his leave of the Collector. 

* * *

When he returned to the lab, Tony was staring at the case. 

Tony continued to stare pointedly at the case as Loki put the blue reactor back into the armor, twisted it home, and gave it a little pat. 

"You took Space," Tony commented, voice not quite accusing. 

"I did," said Loki. "I had an errand to run." He held out the Aether in its rectangular black casing. "We have Reality." 

"Okay, good enough, still could have asked," Tony said, but his mind was already focused almost entirely on the gem. "Fry," he said, "run me some analysis on this." He took it from Loki's hand, plunked it onto one of his worktables. 

"It's in almost complete containment, Boss," FRIDAY told him. "Minor energy leakage, mostly in the red and infrared ranges. It's barely leaking gamma. It's locked down." 

"Why's this container different from the others?" Tony asked as he messed with his displays, sorting data. "What's it used for, like this?" 

"The Aether is too dangerous to use," Loki told him. "Unlike the other Infinity Stones, it has no static form. It will try to merge physically with any being that tries to make use of it." 

"And you didn't tell me this before, why?" Tony asked. "The containers I make aren't gonna do much for this, are they?" 

"You studied the Gauntlet?" Loki asked. "All of it? There was a space for the Reality Gem. Can you not replicate it?" 

"Right, but in the Gauntlet, you've got Space, too. I didn't know what I was looking at, but I think there are energy channels built into the Gauntlet to let Space contain Reality. You've gotta be holding both." Tony beckoned the armor over, and it walked to him. He took the reactor out of its chest once more, held it to his own, let go, and it stayed. Then he picked up the container for Reality again. 

He slid it out of its containment as if the box wasn't there, held it in his hand, or hovering a quarter of an inch away, like it was a piece of toast surrounded by a force field. He frowned at it, then did something that made the Aether twist and writhe, before clamping down into its small square shape again. 

"Holy shit," Tony said flatly. He slid it back into his box, then lowered Space from his chest. 

"Can you improvise?" Loki asked. "Make something that does the same as Space would?" 

Tony hissed through his teeth. "Don't know. Not in the next week. That's not just a side effect of Space. That's Space. Actively keeping Reality in check. Reality is a sneaky bastard." 

Loki frowned at it. "I know it does prefer a biological interface, but the Soul Gem could interface with both Hulk and the armor, so why not this?" 

Tony glared at the glowing box on the table. "Because... because! I mean, it's..." Tony put his head in his hands. "I can't do this." 

"Then we will simply not use Reality." Loki spoke softly. "You can defeat him without a left hand." 

"We will if we have to," Tony agreed. But he looked thoughtful now. 

"Have you thought of a way around this problem?" 

"No. But you remember what the Norns told me?" 

"That what you could not do, I could. How would I do this? I am not an engineer." 

"Well, and this isn't exactly engineering. It's... listen. This thing? It has an adaptive interface. Any box I put it in? It's gonna be able to get out. This, this thing you've got it in right now, it pretty much dampens the thing down completely. Makes it totally unusable. But if we let it out... it's going to hack whatever we throw at it. It hacks bodies, and bodies are pretty much the most complex and varied systems I can even begin to grasp. You'd need... you'd need a system created on constantly shifting principles. You'd need an intelligence devoted to just staying ahead of it. Tricking it." Tony bit his lip. "And I'm kinda done with feeding advanced AIs to these things. I don't want to build any more friends just to watch them die." He looked at Loki. "I don't wanna ask you to do that either, but... maybe there's some other way to use magic to get this done?" 

Oh. 

Loki raised his left hand, staring at it. He'd tried to forget that moment, but.... 

"I know the Jotuns are shifters," he commented. "I did not know I was one myself until one of them grabbed me by the wrist and tried to burn me with cold. My hand shifted in self-defense. It turned to its true form. To a blue Jotun skin that could easily withstand the cold. All this without my impetus, without even my knowledge that it was possible." 

"Huh," Tony said, eyes wide. 

"I have never tried to take on any third form, one that was not either Jotun or Aesir. I find my illusions sufficient for disguise. But perhaps it is time that I tried." 

Tony smiled. "Always good to have options," he agreed. 


	7. Chapter 7

"So if I understand what you're suggesting," Tony said, "you want to turn yourself into a living tower defense game? Put everything in place and hope it kicks in at the right time to keep you safe from this thing? You think that'll work? I mean, it sounds like our best chance. But how much range do your powers really have? I assume it's not just shape. You're not cold to the touch or anything." 

"I have never tested, as I said," Loki answered. "But all my life I have been one of the Aesir, lived as one of them, ate, slept, reacted to medical treatment as any one of them did. My talent at magic set me apart, but it is not an unknown talent among the people of Asgard. My body knows two shapes - the one it was born to, and the one it was raised to. I never shifted forms in defense before." He lapsed into silence. 

"So I guess the question is, how'd you learn how to be an Asgardian in the first place?" Tony said bluntly. 

"There... were many questions I tried to ask Odin when I learned of my origins. Few of them were answered. The details of my... assimilation into the Aesir people was one far from my mind. And now Odin is dead." 

"Trial and error it is?" Tony surmised. "Try turning into something. A bird, maybe. That'd be awesome." 

_Eagle,_ Loki thought, looking at his left hand. Nothing. _Magpie._ Nothing. _Falcon. Crow. Raven._

As he thought _raven,_ black feathers sprouted from his wrist. 

"Raven," he murmured to himself. He watched his nails turn to claws, his fingers thin and lengthen. 

"Woah," Tony said from beside him. 

Loki's attention broken, his hand snapped back to Aesir pale flesh. 

"So could you go full bird? Flight and everything?" 

"Presumably. That's not my focus at the moment." 

"So anything you think of, you can turn into? What about dragons?" 

"Not anything," Loki said thoughtfully, and then thought, _Jor._ Vivid green scales coated the back of his hand. "Creatures I'm acquainted with," Loki guessed. "Perhaps, creatures I've touched." 

"You think it makes a difference if they're natural or artificial? Think you could do Hulk, or Vision?" 

The scales disappeared, but his hand remained green, fingers turning thick. 

"Looks like a check mark on the Hulk front," Tony said. "That's a good sign, right? In terms of you becoming a container for a Stone?" 

"I would say so," Loki answered. _Vision,_ he thought, looking at his hand. But it only blended from Hulk green to Jotun blue to Aesir pale. "But either Vision is one step too artificial, or the limitation is based on touch." 

"One way to find out," Tony said. "Fry, tell V we need his sexy sexy robot body. For Reasons." 

* * *

It was based on touch. 

They'd done a series of tests. Vision was biological enough for Loki to mimic; Dummy was not. Plants worked well. Bacteria was... interesting. 

"I don't see the point of this," Loki said, frustrated by another nearly successful attempt. "These creatures are too small for my body to take only part of their shape, and whole, most of my forms will fight them off." 

"Most? Not all?" Tony asked. 

"When I mimic human flesh, they attack it, and it is painful, and I shift in defense." 

"Huh," said Tony. "Wonder what would happen if you touched a Komodo dragon. They use this stuff as a weapon. Actively harbor it. Bet your cells could learn that." 

"Perhaps." Loki frowned. "And that weapon is harmful to humans?" 

"Oh, yeah, almost invariably fatal," Tony said gleefully. "Actually, there are a lot of animals around here that have really effective defense mechanisms. Probably not much on par with an Asgardian dragon's bite, but the key here is variety, right? Absorb as many defense mechanisms as possible so that your body has enough of a range to keep up with the gem, keep it confused?" Tony chuckled. "There are some animals and plants in Australia I'm gonna want to introduce you to. Strictly while armored. But yeah." 

A horror had been slowly gaining ground in Loki's belly at the thought of what all this would mean. 

"No," he said. 

"What?" Tony asked, eyebrows furrowing together. 

"No," Loki said more firmly. "I can't do this, Tony. I won't. You can save the galaxy without me. I believe you can." 

"What, but why, this is genius, it will work, it's the best plan we have, we need all the gems to balance each other, you said it yourself, why are you not listening?" 

Loki took a breath. "I have faith in you," he told Tony, "but more than that, I love you. You have taught me how a man might choose what he becomes and I do not want this. if I do this to myself there is no going back. I will be a weapon down to my core. I will be deadly by nature." 

Tony looked hurt. Angry, mostly, but Loki could see so very clearly what lay so close to the surface of that anger. "Well what's so bad about that?" he asked sharply. 

"I know," said Loki. "I know you formed yourself into a weapon because you had the potential, because that was what people needed you to be. I know that you are Iron Man and that that is what stood between you and your former lady love. I know I am being selfish to ask for a different fate but when have I ever been allowed to be selfish? When have I ever been allowed to be pure? When have I ever been allowed to have a life where I can do the right thing simply by being _good?_ " 

He didn't want to yell, but the feelings had grown too big for anything else. 

"You're getting squeamish now?" Tony said incredulously. "After finding out you're a species that your dad wanted to wipe out? After everything you did under Thanos? You never gave up before, you always did what you had to to survive! Why give up now? Why draw the line here? There is nothing wrong with your shapeshifting, there is nothing wrong with you using it for everything it's worth in this fight! Why are you trying to back out?" 

"Because I could kill you and not ever know!" Loki snapped. "Because if I sleep beside you, and then dream of Thanos, I would wake up to find you dead!" 

"Oh." Tony looked startled, then vaguely ill. A memory floated up, easy enough to read - the armor looming over the human couple in their bed, pointing its deadly weapons at Pepper. A defense too much part of him, a nightmare come to haunt the waking world. 

"Yes," Loki agreed. "All I have gained. All you have given me. Gone. I would not survive that." 

Tony's thoughts worked furiously. But in the end, he really only had one question. Loki waited for him to speak it aloud. 

"You're really going to let that stop you from doing your best to save the galaxy?" 

Loki clenched his teeth, answered honestly. He was, always and forever, Loki. The villain of the piece, or a mere tool in its progression. He had his place in the story, and it never did him any good to try and refuse it. He knew, because the man in front of him wished it, that doing what he could, whatever he could, to save the Realms was the right choice. 

"...No," he forced out. 

"Good," said Tony. 

But for a second time since they'd begun their acquaintance, Tony Stark's mind was closed to Loki. 

The man was right to close that door, Loki told himself. They had no comfort for each other, not right now, not in this. 

Being close, right now, would only hurt more. 

"I'm gonna go see how Rhodey's doing," Tony told him, and walked out of the room. 

Loki.... 

Loki went to Tony's bedroom, stripped out of his clothing, took the form of one of Freya's war cats, and curled up in a ball on Tony's side of the bed. 

* * *

In the morning, Loki found himself still alone in bed, and blue. 

He supposed it wasn't a terribly surprising default to revert to while he was asleep, especially as he'd asked his body to do so much in the last day, calling on his Jotun powers, and fallen asleep with no clothes or covers on, only fur. Even if he had turned Aesir in the night, he might have simply then gotten cold. 

But it could already happen with Tony in the bed, too. He might hurt his lover with the cold of it. 

Had Tony slept at all? Had he slept here? Had he fled the cold? _Had_ Loki hurt him? 

Loki dressed, resumed his usual skin, and went to find out. 

Tony... didn't look like he'd slept. Which was, in some way, a relief. As was his renewed optimism and excitement about whatever project had so occupied him. But there was something dangerous about the determined glint in his eye, and the way Bruce and Vision, who he'd seemingly roped into the project, kept shooting him glances as if they were worried he'd disappear. 

And the moment Tony caught sight of Loki, his mind went slippery and evasive again. Not closed off, this time, but more simply hesitant. 

"What are you doing, Tony?" Loki asked. 

Tony's face said many things, then, wondering whether he could get away with a lie and then realizing _no,_ trying to brace for impact then wondering what kind of impact he should be braced for, before he finally spat out, "Hey, so you know the thing where Pepper's pretty much invulnerable?" 

Loki raised his eyebrows. Had this happened while he was in Asgard prison? Surely not before. "I did not," he answered. "How did you achieve this?" 

"It's a virus," Tony said. "An engineered one. Called Extremis. Original inventors killed a lot of people trying to get the formula right. Pepper's the only one who survived, because Bruce helped me stabilize it. It works now. It'll fix our little insta-death problem. Also possible it'll extend my lifespan. Like a lot." 

Loki narrowed his eyes. "How many people, exactly, has it killed?" 

Tony's mind turned slippery again. "Not the point. It works. And it could make our chances better in this fight. Better a superhuman than a human, right?" 

"This is not for the fight. It is for me. And it is idiotic. We will have much less chance if you do this and it kills you." 

"That's not going to happen." Tony was sure. No evasion, no lie, no question. 

"How can you be sure?" Loki asked, listening hard. 

"'Cause I asked Rhodey." 

Loki... merely blinked at him for a moment. "He can manage the stone now?" 

"In small doses. He needed specific facts to look for, not too far in the future, not too many factors involved. Seemed like a good fit." 

Loki simply stared at him. 

"Babe? Honey? What are you thinking?" 

"I get to keep you," Loki murmured. "I truly get to keep you." 

"Yeah," Tony said, smile small but warm. "I'm sticking around for a while." 

Bruce and Vision kept working in the background, but for Loki and Tony, reality faded back until it was just the two of them, intertwined, not holding back from each other anymore, just glad to be able to be close, to have the refuge of each other's arms to fall back on. 

If they had a future at all, they would have it together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, that took a while to get myself in a good mental state to write. Also my second novel is taking a lot of my attention, but I should be back on task with this by the 9th. 
> 
> I still don't have a ton of ideas how it's all going to work out in the end, but I'll find some!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm continuing the tradition of just posting whenever I've got what seems like a good chunk, even if they're shortish chapters. I like where these are leaving off, anyway.

Extremis hurt like a sunuvabitch, but Tony was surrounded by pretty much all his favorite people, and that helped. Rhodey, on one side, distracted him with jokes and stories, and Loki, on the other, created little illusions to illustrate or comment on them. Bruce hovered around, monitoring, and so did Vision, which was kind of like having JARVIS around, only not. 

When he got lost a little in the pain and called out for JARVIS, though, that so familiar voice answered. 

And they hadn't had time for the whole "reading Pepper in to the plan and explaining everything" undertaking, so she wasn't here, but the new orange glow under his skin... it was something like having her close. 

Extremis could burn through the War Machine armor, so the hand that he held was Loki's, encased in a cool, soothing layer of constantly regenerating ice. That hand stroked his forehead when he was most lost, and that voice... his new favorite counterfeit of a posh Englishman's soothing tones... was always ready with a word when he most needed it. 

He could have been dreaming, but he thought he heard Loki singing, once. 

The pain started to settle at around the six hour mark, dulling down to a quietly burning ache in his muscles, his eyes, throat, and lungs. 

It reminded him of the palladium, when that had been burning through his veins, except, instead of tasting like hot metal, his raw throat tasted like smoked meat and ash. 

"Ugh," he commented. "I really wanna get to the part where I can brush my teeth." 

Bruce gave a tiny smile. "I take it you're starting to feel better?" he asked. 

"Little bit," Tony answered. 

Loki gave a sigh of relief, hearing the true depth of that, and slumped into his side, skin blue and frosted but no longer covered in a crystal layer of ice. 

"Thank you," Tony whispered into his hair, knowing it was all he needed to say, knowing Loki heard all of it. 

Loki's hand stroking his was all the answer he needed. 

Tony fell into a relieved, exhausted doze. 

* * *

At the nine-hour mark, Tony woke up feeling like the king of the world. Or possibly several. He stood, stretched, grabbed some nearby clothes, that long-awaited tooth-brushing, and some kind of pre-bottled smoothie which he found in Bruce's lab fridge. 

"All right!" he said, clapping his hands, and several people around him started awake from their chairs. "I think that's just about done it. Time to get back to business!" 

"And what business would that be, that cannot wait until we know you have fully healed?" Loki asked him. 

"Baby," Tony told him, holding out a hand to take his, "I'm gonna show you the world." 

Bruce cleared his throat, but he was still smiling. "Just don't push yourself too hard until you know your limits, all right?" he insisted. 

"Well, yeah," Tony said. "This is totally still taking it easy. It's not like we're gonna travel on foot." He hopped up, strode out of Bruce's lab and into his own, and took the Space Stone in its container. Then he pressed himself against Loki's side, grinning. "Ready to take that tour of the weirdest and most dangerous stuff this planet has to offer?" 

Loki's image flickered, and he stood in casual Earth garb, soft, weathered-looking gray pants, a black leather jacket over a green v-neck, hair neatly tied back. 

"Show me," he challenged. 

Tony's grin widened. "First things first," he said. "A romantic night at the aquarium is exactly what we need right now." 

"Uh, Tony," Rhodey said, "it's kinda the middle of the night. Pretty sure all the aquariums are closed." 

"At least, the ones on the Eastern seaboard," Vision offered. 

Loki only chuckled. "All the better for sneaking our way in," he said. 

Tony picked up where he'd left off. "And getting up close and personal with the world's most dangerous fish," he said, smirking. 

Rhodey shook his head. "Wow," he said. "Never thought I'd see the day when Tony Stark got in the finish-each-other's-sentences kind of relationship." 

Tony chuckled. "Never met anybody else with sentences as interesting as mine," he shrugged. 

Loki looked pleased as punch with this assessment. 

"All right, kids, don't wait up," he told the others. "Get some sleep. You've all pretty much been watching me sleep like a house full of creepers, right? Rest. I'll come find you if I need anything. Which I won't." 

And he and Loki vanished. 

* * *

The darkened aquarium was beautiful, but the most beautiful thing about it was Loki, and the expressions he made when Tony was explaining about each fish and what he knew about it, holding out a perfectly contained cube of water with the next interesting beast in it, the sides of which Loki could put his fingers through without breaching the containment. 

The stuff that the Space Gem could be made to do was just exceedingly cool, the more Tony learned. 

But what was even more amazing was watching Loki's flesh change shape, whenever he touched another form of life. Here twining tendrils with a stinging jellyfish, there bumping spines with a neurotoxic blowfish, next sharing space and texture with an electric eel. 

Tony had chosen Baltimore because he knew they had poison darts and other dangerous amphibians, as well as fish. So they spent a good long time there. 

But soon enough they moved on to other zoos and collections, reptiles and spiders, burning and stinging plants. 

"Oh, and there's this plant in Australia," Tony told him excitedly, "that will permanently damage the nerves in human skin. Just set them to 'pain' like that." He snapped his fingers. "I wouldn't have gone within fifty feet of them before, even in the armor, the stories are just terrifying, but now I can regrow a whole leg if I need to, I'm sure nerves won't be an issue." 

"You are insane," Loki informed him. "You are more insane than I have ever been." 

Tony simply shrugged. "Could be," he said. 

Then Tony's phone rang, Rhodey's picture gracing the screen. "Hey, Sailor Pluto, miss me? No need to be jealous, you'll always be my first honeybear." 

"Guys, it's time," Rhodey said. "We need to get ready. Thanos is on the move." 

They were back before Rhodey had finished his sentence. 

"How 'now' is now?" Tony asked, watching with concern as Bruce paced the labs. 

"It's now," Rhodey answered. "Loki, you reach in and grab the Aether. You're as ready as you're gonna get. Tony, you finish the container for Power and get Thor set up with it. Now's our window. And we still might not get to Power before Thanos does." 

Loki nodded, swallowed, and reached for Reality. Cracked open its box and took it in his left hand, his hand that knew so many ways of being, now. 

It tried to escape. His flesh flowed around it like a jellyfish's cape. It tried to tear through him. Jor's scales hardened against it. It tried to infect him, poison him, crawl through his body as it had through Jane's. 

Extremis lit under his skin, and fought it back. 

Every life he'd ever touched had a part in making him a container for Reality. Every connection he'd ever made. And there were many that represented real interpersonal connections, real friendship, real love. In Jor, in Bruce, in Vision, and especially in Tony, those parts of themselves that they'd offered to Loki, through their skin, their touch - that was a gift. That was trust. Perhaps, that was love. 

Reality and Loki fought, burned and froze and poisoned each other in turn, gaining ground and losing it, until they reached an equilibrium, until they reached a compromise. 

"Now," Loki told the stone, "I will tell you what is to be my reality." 

_Will you?_ it challenged. 

"You wish to be held in Gauntlet with your siblings, fight beside them as when you were controlled by one master. True? Or would you have me stop helping you towards that goal?" 

_I listen,_ it responded. 

"Then we will give them Allspeak," Loki told the Stone. "Not like Thor's. Like mine. We will tie these six minds to each other closely enough that each stone can feel the others vibrate through the bonds that link us. We will make this team hear each other, loud and clear and strong." 

_So be it,_ said Reality. 

And it was. 

Time, Soul, Mind, Space, Reality hummed to each other through the minds of six heroes turned one. Thor's empty right hand was like an open wound. 

"Now," said Loki to Reality, "Let us go and find our brother, Power." 


	9. Chapter 9

The six minds sped at such different rates. 

Vision was fastest by far. Then the cluster of Tony, Bruce/Hulk, Loki. Rhodey and Thor trailed behind. Vision's year was Thor's day. 

_But you are wise in ways I am not,_ Vision told Thor, emoting respect and hero-worship in his direction. 

Vision paced his thoughts, slowed to the rhythm of the cluster. 

Tony could not moderate his speed, not and remain himself, the hero he was, the Engineer, Iron Man. Bruce and Loki knew this very well, and were both very much accustomed to bridging that gap, Bruce distilling and translating to Hulk and making their own kind of sense out of it, Loki listening well and using tricks and jumps of logic to stay ahead. 

Rhodey tapped into Time, adjusted his own speed to nearer theirs. 

Thor... accepted his place. He was here as the right hand, he was a weapon, a tool to be aimed. 

With Reality's... enhancements, he still caught much more in passing than he ever had before, and he caught Loki thinking that it was about time Thor knew how that felt, caught the guilt that followed, the quick and still inevitably resentful apology. 

_If you could hear all of this, hear so deeply,_ Thor thought in his direction, _all this time, if you felt so apart because of how your mind works...._

_Yes!_ Loki couldn't help but reply, here, where impulse and communication were so very entangled. Where Thor stood open, now, clear to read, even now that he knew what it meant. As Tony had nearly always stood open, despite knowing how deeply Loki could read. _Every day of our lives._

They stood open to him, these two brave and shining heroes, who loved him most dearly and most helplessly. 

He could not help but be open with them, in turn. 

Especially now that the fate of the galaxy hinged on this working relationship, this... team. 

_I have been arrogant,_ Thor felt, deep in his bones, an echo of that guilt. _I have felt myself in the right without listening to you as I know now you have always listened to me. But I hope, in time, I will learn when I should lead, when I should follow, and when I should merely keep pace._

Loki felt... awe. 

Tony felt hope. And a twisted little vindictive wish to impose this same talent onto Captain Rogers, once they'd returned to Earth. 

How were the others, how did they find this sudden joining? 

Hulk/Bruce felt serene, a creature who had gone from one mind to two minds to three minds that could see into all souls, and participating in the life of ten other minds was a step into an infinity, but, as Tony would say, not the biggest infinity. At his heart, Hulk liked people, very much. 

Vision... all his processing power, all his enormous experience reading Tony, had given even JARVIS something like this, even before the Mind stone. This was more, but what was more relevant to Vision was the part that was _being seen,_ as a mind, as a soul in his own right, as an emotional being. He'd been created to hear, and wanting to be heard... that was still new, still fresh. 

Tony's fascination with him, complexity beyond what had been inherent in Mind, so far beyond, was gratifying, to Vision. 

Tony had known there was complexity there, there was mind. But... and this connection Tony was just now making... up until this moment, Wanda was the only person who'd truly _witnessed_ it all in action. Who'd not just listened, but _heard._

Rhodey. Rhodey struggled to process it all, struggled not just with the speed of the minds around him, which he'd accounted for, but also the immensity of the concepts. He could follow Tony-the-mechanic all day long, if he needed to, but Tony-the-god? Vision, the humanitarian? Hulk, a righteous yell of anger embodied? Loki, with a mind like a Klein bottle? Thor, at least, he understood. Soldier, warrior, that he was familiar with. And the spans of thousands of years, he was learning to handle. But the rest... their universes were so much bigger than his. 

Rhodey was starting to understand how many smaller infinities he'd skipped over to jump to Time. 

But, Rhodey thought, if he knew anything, it was teamwork, loyalty, compromise. He could make this work. 

They all knew teamwork. They all knew loyalty. They all knew compromise. But the concepts were such different flavors, the words spoken in such different languages. 

Loyalty, on Loki's tongue, was incredibly bitter, and though Tony and Thor were not so vehement about it, they'd tasted that side of the matter, too. Loyalty must always be balanced with flexibility, Tony and Loki knew, down to their bones, and Thor was beginning to absorb it. His father. Heimdall. Loki. It was never simple. 

To Hulk... loyalty tasted of ash. Just another concept that people clung to, to justify themselves and their violence, or let slip through their fingers with hardly a fight. Loyalty was something to be spit out. Survival. Compassion. Those had meaning. If loyalty meant anything, it was choosing compassion without losing sight of survival. 

Vision knew loyalty. He also knew what it was to let it slip through his grasp. To discover that he was no longer the person he believed himself to be. 

This was where Vision felt guilt. Over Rhodey, over that moment of distraction, that stray thought. Over the fall, the pain, the grief it'd put on Tony's face. 

How? How could these six people pull together, after everything they'd done to each other? Thor and Loki, Tony and Vision and Rhodey, Loki and Hulk? 

The six of them, their new and fragile rapport, began to crumble. To lose ground to the weight of guilt. 

_No,_ Rhodey told them all, stopping the speeding of their thoughts, pulling out of the dive just in time. _No,_ Rhodey was full of forceful defiance. _We all make mistakes. Gods, monsters, humans. But it's in the past. We get back up. We move on. We've got a job to do._

_If there's one thing you know,_ Tony thought at him with a laugh, _it's knowing where to draw the line between the past and the present._

Rhodey... could see that. There was a turning point, here in their shared mind, and Rhodey could see it clearly, and in turn, so could the rest. 

They all took a breath, together. 

They all stretched their minds out, as if stretching a body, as if waking up and working out the stiffness of sleep. 

They had a goal, a shared goal, defeating the being who had sent Loki to Earth, who had taken the shreds of a broken being and twisted him further and sent him out to shred worlds, in turn. 

The stones sang for joy at the unity, at being given a purpose, at the promise of being with their brother again. 

They had a war to fight. And if the being-that-was-all-of-them knew anything, it was going to war. 

* * *

Vision set things in motion here, sent messages to the exiled Avengers, telling them the world was theirs to protect, for now. Hacking whatever he had to hack to get Wanda back safe. Leaving a couple of messages for Pepper in Friday's systems, just in case. 

_Nova Corps has Power,_ Loki told them. 

_Not anymore,_ Hulk growled back. _Thanos._

_We have to go after it right now,_ Rhodey urged. 

_It's on Asgard,_ Tony knew. The landscape around them all flicked. _And now so are we._

Thanos was there, power in hand, hovering high over the towers of the Bifrost and laughing insanely. Looking down at the six of them as they blinked into existence. 

"I came for the gauntlet," he told them, grinning. "I never expected to have the other five Infinity Stones brought to me willingly! Surrender like good little lesser beings. The stones were not meant for you." 

"Never," Rhodey said. 

"They're meant for us," Tony agreed. "Venture to say you haven't got the imagination to really put them to use." 

"And what will you do with them?" Thanos asked. 

"Crush you," answered Hulk, loud and clear." 

Thanos's laughter reached a crescendo before he replied. "You? But you are mere humans!" In his mouth, the word sounded like _ants._

Loki remembered, with a shudder, the mindset this creature had imposed on him. But the others sent him warmth, reminded him that past was past, and would never be again. 

"HA!" Hulk answered Thanos's proclamation with a laugh of his own. 

"We are many things," Vision told him. "None of us are 'merely' anything." 

Rhodey snorted. "I'm still technically just human." He glanced at the others, feeling humor from Loki. "Right?" 

"Technically," Loki drawled, "you're a Norn." 

"Right," said Rhodey. "Anyway. Let's crush this guy." 

The stones hummed in agreement, standing ready. 

The battle was joined. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah... still working on building my worthy Infinity War Battle Royale but hope this little chunk appeases y'all in the meantime!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INFINITY WAR

The six Infinity Guardians stood on the edge of the golden city, facing Thanos and his new army. 

Thanos wasted no time in hurling the purple beam of Power at them, and when they dodged it, thanks to Rhodey, or blocked it, thanks to Tony, it sprayed across the Asgardian landscape, crushing, charring, decimating. 

All of them, but especially Thor and Loki, cringed at that. But their priority had to be defeating Thanos, and his new army. 

The beasts that swarmed around them were mechanical, outwardly, but more independent-minded than the Chitauri, with their bionic interfaces, had been. Tony could see their personalities in the way they moved, wondered if they had their own plans for the Infinity Stones that Thanos didn't know about (or possibly dismissed), tried not to think of Dummy, JARVIS, or even Ultron, when he disintegrated one with a Space-powered unibeam or a precisely-executed splinch. He didn't have leisure to try and communicate with them now (though he sent a thought to Vision that he might have more luck, if he got a moment). Part of him hoped they were backed up somewhere safe. 

Vision and Rhodey were wrapped tight in a continuous mental conversation, more often than not, Rhodey speeding at times to match Vision's lightning calculations, until their minds were a blur of ideas-outcomes-tactics. Hulk and Thor were their front line of attack, in the beginning. Loki stood back and watched, tried to discern Thanos's mind, his plans, the best way to counter him on a strategic level. 

Rhodey called formations, ones they'd never practiced or even heard of, but it was all there, in his voice, the way they were now. He led defense, with Tony/Space and Loki/Reality as his playing pieces. Vision led the attack, urging Hulk on or back, trading Mjolnir back and forth with Thor. 

They could not get close to Thanos. 

The other problem was that the army focused on Asgard. Not on them, not on the stones, but on the people around them, the golden city full of people more likely to stand and fight than run and hide. It had all been hammered into them since birth. The value of heroism, self-sacrifice, violence. 

The guardians' minds tugged back and forth, trying to balance the weight of civilian against hero, world against galaxy. Having a code... it could be exhausting. 

Loki sighed, turned away from all that, the inevitability of it, tried to distract Thanos. Learn, and counter, his plan. 

"You can't hope to stand against five stones with only one!" Loki said, driving through the swarm, close enough to Thanos that he could be heard. "You should know when you are beaten!" 

Thanos turned towards him, smiling, slow and menacing. "I will never be beaten," he told Loki. "Not now. Power speaks to me. I understand its song better than I did Mind's. Mind convinced me to control you, but Power knows I don't need to, not when I hold so much over you already. I simply have to use it!" 

Thanos turned the full force of Power's energy beam on Loki with a grin. The others, Loki knew, were occupied, and so he mounted his own defense, Reality delivering the Casket once more to his hand, and Loki watched his hands turn dusky blue as the outpouring of Power was met by the rush of cold from the Casket, a pure, frigid stream of cold, stillness, anti-energy, anti-Power. 

Thanos turned his attention back to the attack on Asgard without that grin leaving his face, and that, that was what made Loki very much afraid. 

"It's not Ragnarok until you've led an army here," Thanos said conversationally, "until you've caused Asgard to burn. If you had not come here, I might have simply taken the Gauntlet and left." 

Loki just shook his head. "No, you would not." 

" _They_ don't know that. Most of them don't even know you claim to stand with the righteous again. Many think you planned this. That you have some sinister sway over Thor. The way I once had over you, the way you had over the Hawk in turn. And that skin betrays you to them." 

The skin of a Frost Giant. 

"You cost me the death of six heroes before the eyes of the greatest city on their world," Thanos continued. "It's time that debt was repaid. This time, you'll be one of them. But you're still going to help me." 

Loki had a very bad feeling about this, especially considering what the Jotunn Norn had told him - that Loki's survival through the coming battle would be inextricably linked to the healing of the rifts in the Avengers team. 

Loki had intended, eventually, to do more about that but they had had no time, not before they left Earth. 

They had had other preparations to make, to ensure Thanos did _not_ survive this. The fate of the galaxy had to come first, Loki knew that very well, both for himself and for Tony. 

But still, these thoughts, he did not share with the group. 

Thanos spoke loudly, then, Power amplifying his voice, spreading it across the whole city. "Asgard will bow before me," he said. "With Loki and the others he has enthralled by my side, you have no chance." 

Those who had come out to join the fight now looked at the Guardians with deep suspicion. Some started towards them, dangerous lights in their eyes. 

The Guardians' minds all focused on this new problem. They had to deal with it _now._

_Don't stop to chat, this isn't that kind of fight,_ Tony gave them. Hulk growled in agreement. 

Loki heard them, but... _Are we truly heroes if we kill this man at the cost of Asgard, if we let ourselves be drawn into a fight against the very people who we wish to fight beside?_

The answer, from Tony, was an immediate and resounding _Yes._ Of course it was. Heroes... it was a very complicated word, in Tony's mouth as much as in Loki's. 

_But if we can avoid it,_ Vision added, _we should._

Loki always wished to be a hero by the standards of more than himself, and at least now he had Tony, and the team. These guardians of infinity. The eyes of Asgard... the galaxy could not afford that as a factor. Nor the fate of Asgard, truly. 

Then the only weights to be measured were the chances they had of beating Thanos and his army while they both also stood against the forces of Asgard, and the likelihood that any given plan to sway those forces would work. 

_Can I persuade them with mere words?_ he asked Rhodey. 

_No, man,_ the Norn answered. _I'm sorry._

Loki nodded in acknowledgement. _Then a work of Reality it must be._

_They must hear me,_ he told Reality. _They must, all of them, be able to hear me, and understand, and believe. They must all be brought into this circuit. Heimdall, Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, the Einherjar, anyone likely to stand up and fight._

Reality was reluctant, slow to respond. _That will make it all the harder to hear my siblings._

Loki countered. _There is no other way to reunite you and the others with Power. No way as sure._

_You owe me,_ Reality told him. But it was done. 

All of Asgard's armies could hear, could understand, anything Loki saw fit to tell them. 

And he told them. 

"All I want is to save the Realms. To stop him. He is no master of mine. Help me defeat him and his." 

They heard him. At last, they understood. He could see from the look in Sif's eye, the slant of Fandral's eyebrow, the stances of the Einherjar. They were with him. 

They were part of his team. 

Loki had no time to revel in it. 

Even with Asgard on their side, it would not be an easy fight, it would not be simple. 

_We need to get Power,_ Tony told them. _Before these guys do any more to take out our backup._

_Yeah, sooner the better,_ Rhodey agreed. 

The fight had gone on while Loki negotiated with Reality. Loki noticed consciously now where only the back of his brain had registered it before - the faceplate and shoulder of Iron Man's suit had been burned off by a glancing blow from Power. Tony's skin glowed red where it appeared between the charred edges, rebuilding itself. But he must have been hurt very badly. 

They _needed_ to end this _now._

_Thor, come here,_ he commanded. And Thor did. 

Loki leveraged Reality once more and took ahold of Mjolnir, took the container for Power that Tony had made, and fused them together. What was Mjolnir but a container for force, an instrument designed to moderate the power it dealt? And Mjolnir was a playing piece in this game, the one that could move about the board most freely. They could not get close to Thanos - they had tried - and they could not knock him out. They had tried. 

They needed to attack Power directly. 

The six of them focused as one on getting this attack exactly right. They would probably only have one chance before Thanos realized what they were about and put Power away where Mjolnir could no longer touch it. 

The hammer left Vision's hand, when the time came. Flew straight and true and precise. Clipped Thanos's hand, where he had Power cradled, flipped, seated the gem in its container. 

_Now, Thor!_

Mjolnir, and Power, flew back to Thor's right hand. 

Loki let fall the heightened Allspeak that had encircled Asgard's forces. This was the moment the Stones had yearned for, the reason they had allowed themselves to be so used. 

Power was burning all through them, all through all six of them, Thor holding nothing back only for himself. They worked as one. They were one body, one force. Six colors, six distinctly different beings, but that was not relevant, not now. 

Six colors. They all wore six different colors of skin, Tony noted with a distant part of his mind, as different as the colors of the stones themselves, and it matched them into pairs - Loki in his blue skin, carrying a point of burning red, with Tony red as an ember, carrying a point of burning blue. The tricky ones. The molders, makers, manipulators. The laughing gods. Left. 

Vision in his synthesized purple skin carrying the pale gold glow, Thor in pale-and-gold carrying the purple. The ones who were made to reign, but did not. The serving kings. Right. 

Hulk in vivid green skin carrying the tawny orange glow, Rhodey in tawny brown skin carrying the green. The ones who were broken, but unbroken. The ones who, by nature, protected. The living shields. Center. 

They were meant to be this. They were meant to come together in Gauntlet form. They were meant to destroy Thanos. They could. 

They drew on the Stones, and with one intent, they turned on Thanos. 

"Ah," he said, looking at them. "I go to meet my mistress, then." 

His very existence unraveled under the force of their intent. Thor wished him powerless. Vision wished his thoughts to end. Hulk bid his spark go out. Tony wished him elsewhere so hard he wished him nowhere, and Rhodey wished him end. Loki wished he was no longer real. 

It was.... 

Thanos wasn't. 

And it was terrifying. Completely and utterly heart-chilling. 

Loki's heart had already been ice, before, because of Thanos. So he stood up to the reality and looked it in the face without flinching. 

The others... they had more trouble with it. Vision, especially, and Rhodey. 

"This is too much power," Vision said, voice shaking. "We need to be done with it." 

"Yeah," Rhodey agreed. "Think that's enough of a reunion." 

Tony wasn't sure, himself, especially when he noticed that Loki's mind was closed; there was something about this he was hiding. 

Loki was tired. So tired. His bargain with Reality had weakened his stance in controlling it. But they could not keep the Stones. No. Clearly not. So. This too was a reality that simply needed to be faced. 

Loki took a breath. He undid the bindings between Power's container and Mjolnir, and then the bindings between the six of them. They could no longer hear him as he heard them, sharp and clear and multifaceted. 

Reality was angry. He fought it back. But he was exhausted. The red sparks shifted, swirled, began to creep up his arm. 

He was losing. His legs threatened to buckle. 

Tony noticed first. Of course. Even without the gift, Tony would always read him well. Stark ran to him, yelled at the others, beckoned them over. Asked the Aesir who stood nearby if there was such a thing as a doctor on this planet. 

He let himself collapse, now that Tony was by his side. Focused on the fight inside himself. 

Concern came in waves, from all around. He could hear it. He could feel it. There were waves of Reality, of pain, but there were also waves of concern, of gratitude. 

And when Reality began to visibly eat away at him, great swells of sadness. Grief. 

He was losing himself. But oh, what he got in return. What he'd always wanted, perhaps. He began to drift. 

_This must be what it is like to be loved as Thor is loved, by all in the Realms, without limit._

_It is a good last moment... better than the other deaths... perhaps I'll keep this one._

But no, he suddenly knew, because he could read the grief and anger and determination in Tony's eyes, in the stream of words commanding the others, and he could not give up on Tony, not if Tony has not given up on him. 

He couldn't hear them, nothing was clear any more, not as it always was with him, but then Rhodey reached out a hand to touch him, eyes glowing green, and Loki knew no more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hey so check out [these shitty graphics](http://qwanderer.tumblr.com/post/147701554309/so-i-made-these-quick-and-dirty-face-fusion) I made to go with this chapter)
> 
> (don't worry, the next chapter will not take nearly as long as this beast did, I'm p sure)
> 
> (can you tell I am a little punch-drunk from banging my head against this chappy all day?)


	11. Chapter 11

Loki couldn't die now. He _couldn't._ Not after Tony had made himself superhuman, down to the cellular level, just to get to spend more years alive with him. 

"I used Time to put him into, I guess you might call it a mystical stasis?" Rhodey said. "It's gonna stop him from getting worse. But it's not gonna get him better. It's just a stopgap." 

"Okay, okay," Tony said, trying to keep breathing evenly. "So what _is_ gonna get him better?" When there was no answer right away, Tony continued. "How do we save him, Rhodey? Rhodey, buddy, please...." 

Rhodey let out a frustrated huff of breath. "Give me possibilities, Tony. I can't look into the future without possibilities, that's how that first panic attack happened, okay?" 

"Okay," Tony said again, looking around at the rest of the group. "Thor, seriously, doctors?" 

"The healers here could do nothing for Jane when Reality was housed inside her," Thor said grimly. 

"Right! I remember hearing about that." Tony thought hard. "Loki said that the way they got the Aether out of Jane was to bring her to someone who had more affinity for it, who had magic, and let them take it out of her. If we went to.... is Wanda that person? If we went to her, could she help?" 

Rhodey's eyes flashed green. Tony held his breath, waiting for an answer. 

"Yes," he told Tony. "She's the one. That'll work." 

"He'll be okay?" 

"Yeah, Tony. Loki's gonna be fine. Let's get him back to Earth." 

Tony let out a huge gust of breath, then settled a little, as much as he ever did, and took just a moment to lean down and stroke Loki's perfectly-still blue cheek before reaching for Space and zapping them all back to Earth. 

* * *

Wanda was already en route to the compound, which made things easier. So did the fact that she was comfortable enough to come and join them all in Bruce's lab, when Vision asked it of her. The sight of Loki gave her pause, but she just looked to Vision, waited for him to explain, a quizzical expression on her face. 

Tony wondered what all he'd said to the other Avengers before they left. 

"Wanda, we'd like your help," Vision said. "We believe you are the only one who can save him from the invader in his body. It is a sibling to this." He reached up to touch Mind. "It is Reality. And his magic has reached its limit in holding it back. Would you be willing to try?" 

Wanda frowned at Loki, so still on the bed. "He's Loki? Your brother?" she asked Thor. 

"Yes," Thor answered. "Please, can you try?" 

"I don't know if I should," she said, and no one was quite sure if she meant she was afraid Loki would do harm, or if she was afraid of her own power. 

"It'll work," Rhodey told her. "If you do this? He'll be okay." 

When she still hesitated, Vision spoke to her again. 

"The world knows him as a villain, but look into his mind, look into each of our minds. He is worth saving." Vision sighed. "Since the death of he who I once was, Tony has had no one with whom he shares this depth of a bond, the same profundity of bond that was between you and your brother." 

Wanda looked hard at Tony, at Reality, at Loki. "I think..." she said, "I think I understand." She walked up to the side of the bed, her hands playing over Loki's arm in a shifting dance, not touching. "Stop whatever you are doing. I can take it from here." 

Loki started breathing again, started struggling, visibly, though he did not open his eyes. Wanda's fingers curled, and she mimed pulling, plucking, stroking, all the while muttering inaudibly, and slowly, the red glowing mass trickled out of Loki's flesh and into her grasp, and slowly, inch by inch, his body fought off the last of it, and he settled, his blue flesh reasserting itself and its structure, though his expression was still one of pain. 

Tony watched her, but with one hand, he stroked Loki's hair. 

Wanda held Reality as if she was cradling a favorite pet. But she never let it touch her, not physically. The red tendrils of her own magic stroked and contained the red tendrils of the Aether. Its red light reflected in her eyes as she spoke to it. 

"Yes, Mind made me. Yes, he missed you. Yes, I promise. You will see each other again. You will see each other again before I am reunited with my brother. I know. I know it is hard." 

She soothed Reality, and she led it gently back into its black case. Shut it tight. 

"You cannot keep these things prisoner for the rest of forever," she told those around her with hard eyes. "They are magic, they are chaos, and they will escape." 

"We'll need them again," Rhodey told her. "We're just... putting them away, for safekeeping." 

Wanda gave him a long look, then gave a long look to Time, where it sat low on his chest. Then she nodded. "Good enough," she said. "They are not quite people, not the way we are, at least. A few years apart will do them no more harm. But, apart from Space, they should not be left completely alone." 

"How did you know?" Vision asked her. "That it would recognize you? That Mind shaped you to resemble it?" 

"I recognize so much of its personality. You tell me these stones think of themselves as siblings, and I read in your mind and in them that they miss each other when they are apart? Can I tell you how many times I have seen my brother in a crowd? How many times I have sketched his face, trying to remember, trying to bring it back? I know that the men who used the Scepter to experiment on Pietro and myself had very little idea what they were trying to do. But I think the scepter, the Mind Stone... recognized this, in me." She patted the case in which Reality was held. "I think what I can do, my magic, it is a sketch of a long-lost sibling, written on human paper. And I think Pietro would have recognized the same in Time." 

"That... makes a great deal of sense," Loki said, somewhat weakly, from the bed. "The Stones tend to inspire other creations, objects of power. I had begun to suspect that they did it on purpose. This fills in a little more of the 'why'." 

"So Space inspired the reactors, inspired Iron Man, on purpose?" Vision wondered. "Not just to incite conflict here, but ultimately, to attract enough attention to bring its siblings together?" 

"I wonder how much influence it had on the creation of the Serum," Bruce added. "As far as we can reconstruct, the first tests were before the Tesseract was unearthed, but...." 

"Distance has never mattered to Space overmuch," Loki provided. "But to the others, it does." 

"Mind thinks of the others, makes mementos of them, Space tries to get them closer," Tony said, nodding. "Makes sense." All the time he was talking, though, his hand held tight to Loki's, his other remained in his hair, telling Loki how glad he was to have him back. 

They were not each other's everything. But they were a lot. 

The shift that had given the team Allspeak, that had given Tony Allspeak, had permanently changed him, if only by a small margin of insight into Loki's mind, his thoughts. What went unspoken between them, as they sat there, with each other but present in this conversation because it was about the Infinity Gems, the reason why the Galaxy had almost been destroyed, what was said in all their little touches and glances to each other, it was a little infinity all its own. 

_I used to think that because it was never in my nature to settle, or to be satisfied, that I could not bear to share you with anyone,_ said the grip of Loki's fingers. _Now I know better. Now I know what kind of heroes we are. Now I know that our love is a love so big I can share you with the galaxy. We are neither of us entirely each other's, because we cannot help but dedicate ourselves to something bigger than loyalty to a single man. And that is what we love best, when we look at each other._

_Being enough for you, as I am, is a miracle,_ said Tony's answering squeeze. _And you, you're a miracle all your own._

* * *

"Do you want to hold Reality, the next time we crack that open?" Tony asked Wanda, after he'd contemplated the options for a while. 

"No," she answered, laughing a little, "but thank you for that trust. I don't know that I've earned it." 

"You can take a look," he told her, tapping his temple, "if you're curious. Just don't set the house on fire, this time, okay?" 

"If you're sure," Wanda said. She reached out. 

Listening to Vis's data stream had been very different than listening to the others with Allspeak... Tony could read bits of Jarvis's code as it flew by, as Vision's mind spoke to itself in languages Tony half-knew. He was still absorbing some of the things he'd learned, some of the things he read in Vision's mindset but hadn't yet gotten a chance to process. 

When he'd thought of Wanda as a possible solution to Loki's battle with the Aether, some of that knowledge and insight had crystallized. What Vis saw in her. The fundamental gentleness of her spirit. The fervent wish to make things better, to help people. 

He'd never blamed her for Rhodey. But now he understood her part in it, why Vision loved her. And he couldn't blame Vis. 

_Thank you,_ he thought to her. _Thank you for coming back. Thank you for saving Loki. Don't know what I'd do without him._

"Thank Vis," Wanda replied. "He made it all possible. He made it safe for me here." 

Tony turned to Vision. "Vis," he said. _Grandbaby. JARVIS's child._ "Thank you." 

The smile he got in return was warm, content, and pleased. 

* * *

"Boss, Captain Rogers is on his way," Friday informed them a few minutes later. "I told him everyone's in here." 

Tony looked over at Loki. "You ready for this?" he asked. 

"Are you?" Loki replied. 

Tony let out a sharp breath. "More than I was," he said. 

Loki hummed an agreement, and squeezed Tony's hand. 

They watched Steve as he strode through the door, looking exactly as judgey as they were expecting. 

"I thought you were going offworld. No contact for weeks, and then you say you have to go off to save the galaxy and you're leaving the fate of the Earth to me and mine. Now I'm here, and so are you, and so is... Loki? What kind of a game are you playing?" 

"We did it," Tony said shortly. "Saved the galaxy. We're back. But Loki got injured and we needed Wanda to help him." 

"Loki...? I thought he was dead. I thought he was the enemy." 

Tony shook his head. "You and your hard lines, Cap. Your good opinion, once lost, et cetera." 

Steve looked like he wanted to laugh, or grab ahold of something to stop the world from spinning, one or the other. 

"Listen," Rhodey told him, laying a hand on his arm, "it's been a complicated few days but just know that Loki has fought beside us and nearly died - again - and that maybe his mistakes and things he's been bullied into are a little more high profile than the rest of us - _most_ of the rest of us." He gave a pointed look at Tony. "But now that he's with us, with Tony, I trust him with my life. And to be honest, I respect him a little more than you right now." 

Steve frowned, thinking, but then nodded. "Do you want me to go?" 

"Please, Captain," said Loki. "Stay. It was never my intent to be yet another thing standing between the Avengers. It is now, as it always was, to unite." 

"I don't understand." 

Tony made a thoughtful sound. Looked at Loki, and then around the room. "Well, I guess the little revenge fantasy of using Reality to give Steve the extra-strength Allspeak mojo isn't happening now. Unless Wanda's changed her mind about giving that evil stone a spin?" 

Wanda chuckled darkly. "Oh, I don't need Reality to manipulate people's perceptions, you should know that. For the kind of thing you're thinking of... I could use a boost, but I can get that from Mind." She raised her eyebrows at Vision, who nodded. 

"What are you talking about?" Steve asked, looking lost. 

"So," Rhodey said to him. "You know how you've been wanting to learn Tony-speak? Well, the spell Loki used on us during the fight, it does that. Basically lets your mind transcend language entirely. Loki gave us that gift before, using the Reality stone, but right now Wanda's offering to give it to you. Do you trust Wanda in your head?" 

"I trust her." Steve frowned at her. "Are you sure this is something you wanna do?" 

"I'm sure of nothing," she told him, "but I'm tired of being afraid of my own powers. Someone has to know how to deal with these powers, because I'm not the only place in the galaxy where they exist." She gestured to Reality in its box. 

"Really?" Tony said. "Steve, _you're_ worrying about what our little witch should be allowed to do with her powers now?" 

"I can tell her what I think," Steve argued. "I wouldn't imprison her." 

Wanda looked between them. "Steve was one of the people who tried to convince me to focus on the physical aspects of my powers. He doesn't like the idea of interfering with people's free will, their freedom to choose. Which I understand. I did... a lot of damage to you all. But I do damage with both sides of my powers, and I want to do good with both sides of my powers as well. This is insight, Steve, not manipulation. But it's a gift that I won't give you unless you want it." 

Steve sighed deeply, looking at Tony for a long moment. "I've spent so much time trying to figure you out, Tony. Trying to figure out how to talk to you. And it hasn't always worked well. Hell, sometimes it's been downright disastrous. So I think I need to do this. I think I need to understand exactly where the disconnect is." He nodded at Wanda, who was holding Vision's hand. 

Tony could tell by the way Steve's eyes widened that it had kicked in, that every little twitch in his expression, everything in his stance and the way he leaned into Loki, all that was being translated directly into Steve's brain. 

_Yeah, you get it now?_ he said with an eyebrow. _That it's not a race track, it's a particle accelerator? That there's no way for me to shift gears down enough to explain every little thing to you without changing the whole purpose of the entire system? You get what we're trying to bridge here?_

"I get that you're smart, Tony," Steve replied to that, but he looked a little dizzy, a little sick, a little sad. 

_It's not about that. There are so many times I've needed you to hear me. To hear what I've been trying to tell you. So please, hear me out, now, of all times. Just hear me._

"Okay." 

This was it, and all of the frustration, all of the grief came flooding back. Everything he'd ever needed Steve to know. 

The checks and balances, pros and cons of the Accords, his trust in Vision's reading of the whole damn document, his trust in Rhodey's moral choices, feeling as though they were all already trapped in Ross's clutches and the only way through was forward. 

The fear and need that drove him to design Ultron, the dread of what might be out there, of what and who had sent Loki, the careful approach he'd taken to creating life, the impossibility of Ultron's awakening, how funny the whole thing had to be for Tony to survive the aftermath. 

The desperate, desperate need to go back, to have one more moment with his father, to see him proud, finally, of his son, to go back and tell his parents he loved them one last time before they died. 

Hurt at what Steve had kept from him. Sorrow over having attacked Steve and Bucky in that moment. 

And for good measure, the new things he wanted Steve to know, about Loki, how good Loki was, how hard he tried, how alike they were, how much he loved the crazy god, had a little ever since he'd looked into his eyes across the tiered balconies of Stark Tower and seen how badly Loki wished he could quit the fight. Even though he already knew he was probably going to lose. 

How they both made each other just a little bit saner, that much less likely to do things that they'd look back on later with horror and regret. 

He sighed, leaned into Loki's side, let the blue hands pet his hair now. Let his team, his friends, do the rest. 

Rhodey spoke about infinities and gods and panic, how overwhelming it was to wake up to consequences and responsibilities that spanned worlds. 

Vision, about JARVIS and what he had been to Tony, how he'd shouldered so much of that burden, what his death had meant and how Tony had grieved more than anyone over what Ultron had done. 

Thor spoke about the arrogance of absolute faith. Bruce, about the shape of Tony's soul, how bright it sparked. 

And then Loki spoke. Of Tony's courage, of his brashness, his brilliant defiance, about everything he was and how it had pulled Loki back from the brink, grounded him until he could find reason again. 

About heroism, and what Tony had taught him of it, about self-sacrifice, about the good of worlds being more important than anything else. 

About love, and how close had stood the possibility of losing it because of that heroism, and living far too long into the future without it. 

As Loki lapsed into silence, Steve's eyes were full of tears. 

"I... I'm sorry, Tony. There's so much I should've.... I can try again. I can do better." 

"No, you can't," Tony said softly. _I know you'll go back to not being able to hear me, after this. You always try, and you're always so damned earnest about it, so damned nice. I like you, Steve, I really do, despite everything. But you're never gonna believe in me the way you believe in your friends. I see that now. I'm done hoping for that. So let's just... be friendly acquaintances. I'll keep that phone. You keep that number. And if **you** ever need **my** help... it's yours, Steve. And maybe that's just who we are._

Steve took a long, shaky breath. "...Okay, Tony. Okay." 

Wanda lowered her hands, letting the changes disperse. 

Tony turned his head to bury it in Loki's neck, and didn't look up again until well after Steve had walked out. 

* * *

Ultimately they decided that Time should return to Nornheim, and Power to Asgard - both close enough, in a pinch, even without Space, but far enough away to minimize their volatility, and with people to watch over them. 

Reality, Loki thought, should perhaps go to Jotunheim, but there would be many preparations to make before that would become feasible. For the moment, they would send it to Vanaheim, to the secret-keeper, with strict instruction not to open the box. 

Tony put Space away in a super-secure underground vault, because the new container might have locked down more of its influence than the Tesseract had, but there was still a danger of people picking the damned container up. 

Bruce, Hulk and Soul stayed at the New York Avengers facility with Tony, Loki and Rhodey, and occasionally Peter, but Vision went to California to supervise the building of a second Avengers facility, where Tony invited Steve, Sam, Scott and Clint to kindly base themselves from now on. 

Natasha, Wanda, T'Challa and Thor were all given floating assignments between the two facilities, as they all seemed to work fairly amiably with both teams, especially now that Hulk was more able to put aside any resentment for the sake of the mission. Also, they were the Avengers most likely to have business out of the country at any given time. 

So the six Infinity Stones were separated, three on Earth, three offworld. But they would all come back together to face the next great danger that the Universe decided to throw at the Realms. 

Which, Rhodey said, would only take a decade or so. 

They'd be ready. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's Gauntlet, done at last! Thanks for reading! Hope y'all enjoyed! Don't forget to visit my [fandom tumblr](http://qwanderer.tumblr.com) and my [novelist tumblr](http://irenewendywode.tumblr.com) if you're interested!
> 
> One more short fic should finish out this series, so keep an eye out!


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